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M ■: I ■ S .. -^ih 






THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 



I 






There’s no use to run away from me,” he sa' J 


[ Page i66 ] 






The Duke of 
Chimney Butte 


BY 

Gc W. OGDEN 

Author of “The Land of Last Chance,** 
“The Rustler of Wind River,” Etc. 


FRONTISPIECE BY P. V. E. IVORY 



[^CMCCLI 


CHICAGO 

C. McCLURG & CO 

1920 


.1 


Copyright 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 
1920 


Published April, 1920 


Copyrighted in Great Britdm_ 


APR 12 1920 


M. A. DONOHUE A CO.. PRINTERS AND QlNDCRti, OHiaAGO 




©CU566456 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I 

The All-in-One 




PAGE 

1 

II 

Whetstone, the Outlaw . . 




18 

III 

An Empty Saddle .... 




39 

IV 

‘‘And Speak in Passing . 




47 

V 

Feet upon the Road . . . 




69 

VI 

Allurements of Olendora . 




81 

VII 

The Homeliest Man . . . 




95 

VIII 

The House on the Mesa . . 




108 

IX 

A Knight-Errant .... 




114 

X 

Guests of the Boss Lady . , 




130 

XI 

Alarms and Excursions . . 




146 

XII 

The Fury of Doves . . . 




166 

XIII 

“ No Honor in Her Blood ** 




185 

XIV 

Notice Is Served .... 




198 

XV 

Wolves of the Range . . . 




218 

XVI 

Whetstone Comes Home . . 




238 

XVII 

How Thick Is Blood ? . . . 




255 

XVIII 

The Rivalry of Cooks . . . 




270 

XIX 

The Sentinel 




276 

XX 

Business, and More . . . 




289 

XXI 

A Test of Loyalty .... 




302 

XXII 

The Will- 0 ’-the-Wisp . . . 




320 

XXIII 

Unmasked ....... 




329 

XXIV 

Use for an Old Paper . . . 




333 

XXV 

“ When She Wakes Up ’’ . 




345 

XXVI 

Oysters and Ambitions . . 




361 

XXVII 

Emoluments and Rewards . 




374 


4 


The Duke of Chimney Butte 


CHAPTER I 

THE ALL-IN-ONE 

D own through the Bad Lands the Little 
Missouri comes in long windings, white, 
from a distance, as a frozen river between the 
ash-gray hills. At its margin there are willows ; 
on the small forelands, which flood in June 
when the mountain waters are released, cotton- 
woods grow, leaning toward the southwest like 
captives straining in their bonds, yearning in 
their way for the sun and winds of kinder lati- 
tudes. 

Eain comes to that land but seldom in the 
summer days; in winter the wind sweeps the 
snow into rocky canons; buttes, with tops lev- 
eled by the drift of the old, earth-making days, 
break the weary repetition of hill beyond hill. 

But to people who dwell in a land a long time 
and go about the business of getting a living out 
1 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


of what it has to offer, its wonders are no longer 
notable, its hardships no longer peculiar. So 
it was with the people who lived in the Bad 
Lands at the time that we come among them on 
the vehicle of this tale. To them it was onlj 
an ordinary country of toil and disappointment, 
•or of opportunity and profit, according to their 
station and success. 

To Jeremiah Lambert it seemed the land of 
hopelessness, the last boundary of utter defeat 
as he labored over the uneven road at the end 
of a blistering summer day, trundling his bicy- 
cle at his side. There was a suit-case strapped 
to the handlebar of the bicycle, and in that re- 
ceptacle were the wares which this guileless 
peddler had come into that land to sell. He had 
set out from Omaha full of enthusiasm and 
youthful vigor, incited to the utmost degree of 
vending fervor by the representations of the 
general agent for the little instrument which 
had been the stepping-stone to greater things 
for many an ambitious young man. 

According to the agent, Lambert reflected, as 
he pushed his punctured, lop-wheeled, disor- 
dered, and dejected bicycle along; there had 
2 


THE ALL-IN-ONE 


been none of the ambitions business climbers at 
hand to add his testimony to the general agent ^s 
word. 

Any^C^ay, he had taken the agency, and the 
agent had taken his essential twenty-two dol- 
lars and turned over to him one hundred of 
those notable ladders to future greatness and 
affluence. Lambert had them there in his imita- 
tion-leather suit-case — from which the rain 
had taken the last deceptive gloss — minus 
seven which he had sold in the course of fifteen 
days. 

In those fifteen days Lambert had traveled 
five hundred miles, by the power of his own 
sturdy legs, by the grace of his bicycle, which 
had held up until this day without protest over 
the long, sandy, rocky, dismal roads, and he had 
lived on less than a gopher, day taken by day. 

Housekeepers were not pining for the com- 
bination potato-parer, apple-corer, can-opener, 
tack-puller, known as the “All-in-One ” in any 
reasonable proportion. 

It did not go. Indisputably it was a good 
thing, and well built, and finished like two dol- 
lars’ worth of cutlery. The selling price, retail, 
3 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


was one dollar, and it looked to an unsophisti- 
cated young graduate of an agricultural college 
to be a better opening toward independence and 
the foundation of a farm than a job in the hay 
fields. A man must make his start somewhere, 
and the farther away from competition the bet- 
ter his chance. 

This country to which the general agent had 
sent him was becoming more and more sparsely 
settled. The chances were stretching out 
against him with every mile. The farther into 
that country he should go the smaller would be- 
come the need for that marvelous labor-saving 
invention. 

Lambert had passed the last house before 
noon, when his sixty-five-pound bicycle had suf- 
fered a punctured tire, and there had bargained 
with a Scotch woman at the greasy kitchen door 
with the smell of curing sheepskins in it for his 
dinner. It took a good while to convince the 
woman that the All-in-One was worth it, but she 
yielded out of pity for his hungry state. From 
that house he estimated that he had made fif- 
teen miles before the tire gave out; since then 
he had added ten or twelve more to the score. 

4 


THE ALL-IN-ONE 


Nothing that looked like a house was in sight, 
and it was coming on dusk. 

He labored on, bent in spirit, sore of foot. 
Prom the rise of a hill, when it had fallen so 
dark that he was in doubt of the road, he heard 
a voice singing. And this was the manner of 
the song: 

Oh, I bet my money on a bob-twiled hoss, 

An* a hoo-dah, an* a Jioo-dah; 

I bet my money on a bob-taUed hoss, 

An* a hoo-dah bet on the bay. 

The singer was a man, his voice an aggra- 
vated tenor with a shake to it like an accordion, 
and he sang that stanza over and over as Lam- 
bert leaned on his bicycle and listened. 

Lambert went down the hill. Presently the 
shape of trees began to form out of the valley. 
Behind that barrier the man was doing his sing- 
ing, his voice now rising clear, now falling to 
distance as if he passed to and from, in and out 
of a door, or behind some object which broke 
the flow of sound. A wbiif of coffee, presently, 
and the noise of the man breaking dry sticks, 
5 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


as with his foot, jarring his voice to a deeper 
tremolo. Now the light, with the legs of the 
man in it, showing a cow-camp, the chuck 
wagon in the foreground, the hope of hospital- 
ity big in its magnified proportions. 

Beyond the fire where the singing cook 
worked, men were unsaddling their horses and 
turning them into the corral. Lambert trundled 
his bicycle into the firelight, hailing the cook 
with a cheerful word. 

The cook had a tin plate in his hands, which 
he was wiping on a flour sack. At sight of this 
singular combination of man and wheels he 
leaned forward in astonishment, his song bitten 
off between two words, the tin plate before his 
chest, the drying operations suspended. Amaze- 
ment was on him, if not fright. Lambert put 
his hand into his hip-pocket and drew forth a 
shining All-in-One, which he always had ready 
there to produce as he approached a door. 

He stood there with it in his hand, the fire- 
light over him, smiling in his most ingratiating 
fashion. That had been one of the strong texts 
of the general agent. Always meet them with 
a smile, he said, and leave them with a smile, 
6 


THE ALL-IN-ONE 


no matter whether they deserved it or not. It 
proved a man^s unfaltering confidence in him- 
self and the article which he presented to the 
world. 

Lambert was beginning to doubt even this 
paragraph of his general instructions. He had 
been smiling until he believed his eye-teeth were 
wearing thin from exposure, but it seemed the 
one thing that had a grain in it among all the 
buncombe and bluff. And he stood there smil- 
ing at the camp cook, who seemed to be afraid 
of him, the tin plate held before his gizzard hke 
a shield. 

There was nothing about Lambert ^s appear- 
ance to scare anybody, and least of all a bow- 
legged man beside a fire in the open air of the 
Bad Lands, where things are not just as they 
are in any other part of this world at all. His 
manner was rather boyish and diffident, and 
wholly apologetic, and the All-in-One glistened 
in his hand like a razor, or a revolver, or any- 
thing terrible and destructive that a startled 
camp cook might make it out to be. 

A rather long-legged young man, in canvaa 
puttees, a buoyant and irrepressible light in his 
7 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


face which the fatigues and disappointments of 
the long road had not dimmed; a light-haired 
man, with his hat pushed back from his fore- 
head, and a speckled shirt on him, and trousers 
rather tight — that was what the camp cook 
saw, standing exactly as he had turned and 
posed at Lambert ^s first word. 

Lambert drew a step nearer, and began ne- 
gotiations for supper on the basis of an even 
exchange. 

Oh, agent, are jouV’ said the cook, letting 
out a breath of relief. 

No; peddler.’’ 

‘‘ I don’t know how to tell ’em apart. Well, 
put it away, son, put it away, whatever it is. 
No hungry man don’t have to dig up his money 
to eat in this camp.” 

This was the kindest reception that Lambert 
had received since taking to the road to found 
his fortunes on the All-in-One. He was quick 
with his expression of appreciation, which the 
cook ignored while he went about the business 
of lighting two lanterns which he hung on the 
wagon end. 

Men came stringing into the light from the 
8 


THE ALL-IN-ONE 


noise of unsaddling at the corral with loud and 
jocund greetings to the cook, and respectful, 
even distant and reserved, ‘‘ evenings ’’ for the 
stranger. All of them but the cook wore car- 
tridge-belts and revolvers, which they un- 
strapped and hung about the wagon as they 
arrived. All of them, that is, but one black- 
haired, tall young man. He kept his weapon 
on, and sat down to eat with it close under his 
hand. 

Nine or ten of them sat in at the meal, with 
a considerable clashing of cutlery on tin plates 
and cups. It was evident to Lambert that his 
presence exercised a restraint over their cus- 
tomary exchange of banter. In spite of the lib- 
erality of the cook, and the solicitation on part 
of his numerous hosts to ‘‘ eat hearty, Lam- 
bert could not help the feeling that he was away 
off on the edge, and that his arrival had put a 
rein on the spirits of these men. 

Mainly they were young men like himself, 
two or three of them only betrayed by gray in 
beards and hair; brown, sinewy, lean- jawed 
men, no dissipation showing in their eyes. 

Lambert felt himself drawn to them by a 
9 


THE DUKE OF CHI]\INEY BUTTE 


sense of kinship. He never had been in a cow- 
camp before in his life, but there was something 
in the air of it, in the dignified ignoring of the 
evident hardships of such a life that told him 
he was among his kind. 

The cook was a different type of man from 
the others, and seemed to have been pitched into 
the game like the last pawn of a desperate 
player. He was a short man, thick in the body, 
heavy in the shoulders, so bow-legged that he 
weaved from side to side like a sailor as he went 
swinging about his work. It seemed, indeed, 
that he must have taken to a horse very early in 
life, while his legs were yet plastic, for they had 
set to the curve of the animaUs barrel like the 
bark on a tree. 

His black hair was cut short, all except a fore- 
lock like a horse, leaving his big ears naked and 
unframed. These turned away from his head 
as if they had been frosted and wilted, and if 
ears ever stood as an index to generosity in this 
world the camp cook ’s at once pronounced him 
the most liberal man to be met between the 
mountains and the sea. His features were 
small, his mustache and eyebrows large, his 
10 


THE ALL-IN-ONE 


nose sharp and thin, his eyes blue, and as bright 
and merry as a June day. 

He wore a blue wool shirt, new and clean, 
with a bright scarlet necktie as big as a hand 
of tobacco ; and a green velvet vest, a galloping 
horse on his heavy gold watch-chain, and great, 
loose, baggy corduroy trousers, like a pirate of 
the Spanish Main. These were folded into ex- 
pensive, high-heeled, quilted-topped boots, and, 
in spite of his trade, there was not a spot of 
grease or flour on him anywhere to be seen. 

Lambert noted the humorous glances which 
passed from eye to eye, and the sly winks that 
went round the circle of cross.-legged men with 
tin plates between their knees as they looked 
now and then at his bicycle leaning close by 
against a tree. But the exactions of hospitality 
appeared to keep down both curiosity and com- 
ment during the meal. Nobody asked him 
where he came from, what his business was, or 
whither he was bound, until the last plate was 
pitched into the box, the last: cup drained of its 
black, scalding coffee. 

Tt was one of the elders who took it up then, 
after he had his pipe going and Lambert had 
11 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


rolled a cigarette from the proffered pouch. 

What kind of a horse is that you’re ridin’, 
son?” he inquired. 

Have a look at it,” Lambert invited, know- 
ing that the machine was new to most, if not 
all, of them. He led the way to the bicycle, they 
unlimbering from their squatting beside the 
wagon and following. 

He took the case containing his unprofitable 
wares from the handlebars and turned the bicy- 
cle over to them, offering no explanations on its 
peculiarities or parts, speaking only when they 
asked him, in horse parlance, with humor that 
broadened as they put off their reser\"e. On in- 
vitation to show its gait he mounted it, after 
explaining that it had stepped on a nail and 
traveled lamely. He circled the fire and came 
back to them, offering it to anybody who might 
want to try his skill. 

Hard as they were to shake out of the sad- 
dle, not a man of them, old or young, could 
mount the rubber-shod steed of the city streets. 
All of them gave it up after a tumultuous hour 
of hilarity but the bow-legged cook, whom they 
called Taterleg. He said he never had laid 
12 


THE ALL-IN-ONE 


much claim to being a horseman, but if he 
couldn’t ride a long-homed Texas steer that 
went on wheels he’d resign his job. 

He took it out into the open, away from the 
immediate danger of a collision with a tree, and 
squared himself to break it in. He got it going 
at last, cheered by loud whoops of admiration 
and encouragement, and rode it straight into 
the fire. He scattered sticks and coals and bore 
a wabbling course ahead, his friends after him, 
shouting and waving hats. Somewhere in the 
dark beyond the lanterns he ran into a tree. 

But he came back pushing the machine, his 
nose skinned, sweating and triumphant, oifer- 
ing to pay for any damage he had done. Lam- 
bert assured him there was no damage. They 
sat down to smoke again, all of them feeling bet- 
ter, the barrier against the stranger quite down, 
everything comfortable and serene. 

Lambert told them, in reply to kindly, polite 
questioning from the elder of the bunch, a man 
designated by the name Siwash, how he was 
lately graduated from the Kansas Agricultural 
College at Manhattan, and how he had taken the 
road with a grip full of hardware to get enough 
13 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


ballast in his jeans to keep the winter wind 
from blowing him away. 

‘‘ Yes, I thought that was a college hat you 
had on,’’ said Siwash. 

Lambert acknowledged its weakness. 

‘‘And that shirt looked to me from the first 
snort I got at it like a college shirt. I used to 
be where they was at one time.” 

Lambert explained that an aggie wasn’t 
the same as a regular college feUow, such as 
they turn loose from the big factories in the 
East, where they thicken their tongues to the 
broad a and call it an education; nothing like 
that, at all. He went into the details of the 
great farms manned by the students, the bone- 
making, as well as the brain-making work of 
such an institution as the one whose shadows he 
had lately left. 

“ I ain’t a-findin’ any fault with them farmer 
colleges, ’ ’ Siwash said. ‘ ‘ I worked for a man 
in Montanny that sent his boy off to one of ’em, 
and that feller come back and got to be state 
vet ’nary. I ain’t got nothing ag’in’ a college 
hat, as far as that goes, neither, but I know 
’em when I see ’em — I can spot ’em every 
14 


THE ALL-IN-ONE 


time. Will you let us see them Do-it-Alls? ’’ 

Lambert produced one of the little imple- 
ments, explained its points, and it passed from 
hand to hand, with comments which would have 
been worth gold to the general agent. 

It^s a toothpick and a tater-peeler put to- 
gether,^’ said Siwash, when it came back to his 
hand. The young fellow with the black, sleek 
hair, who kept his gun on, reached for it, bent 
over it in the light, examining it with interest. 

^ ‘ You can trim your toenails with it and half- 
sole your boots,” he said. “ You can shave 
with it and saw wood, pull teeth and brand mav- 
ericks; you can open a bottle or a bank with 
it, and you can open the hired gal’s eyes 
with it in the momin ’. It’s good for the old and 
the young, for the crippled and the tVsane ; it’ll 
heat your house and hoe your garden, and put 
the children to bed at night. And it’s made and 
sold and distributed by Mr. — Mr. — by the 
Duke ” 

Here he bent over it a little closer, turning it 
in the light to see what was stamped in the 
metal beneath the words The Duke,” that be- 
ing the name denoting excellence which the 
15 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


mairnfacturer had given the tool. 

‘ ‘ By the Duke of — the Duke of — is them 
three links of saursage, Siwash? ’’ 

Siwash looked at the triangle under the name. 

No, that’s Indian writin’; it means a moun- 
tain,” he said. 

‘‘ Sure, of course, I might ’a’ knowed,” the 
young man said with deep self-scom. ‘‘ That’s 
a butte, that’s old Chimney Butte, as plain as 
smoke. Made and sold and distributed in the 
Bad Lands by the Duke of Chimney Butte. 
Duke, ’ ’ said he solemnly, rising and offering his 
hand, ‘‘I’m proud to know you.” 

There was no laughter at this ; it was not time 
to laugh yet. They sat looking at the young 
man, primed and ready for the big laugh, in- 
deed, but holding it in for its moment. As 
gravely as the cowboy had risen, as solemnly 
as he held his countenance in mock seriousness, 
Lambert rose and shook hands with him. 

“ The pleasure is mostly mine,” said he, not 
a flush of embarrassment or resentment in his 
face, not a quiver of the eyelid as he looked the 
other in the face, as if this were some high and 
mighty occasion, in truth. 

16 


THE ALL-IN-ONE 


*‘And you^re all right, Duke, you^re sure all 
right, the cowboy said, a note of admiration 
in his voice. 

I’d bet you money he’s all right,” Siwash 
said, and the others echoed it in nods and grins. 

The cowboy sat down and rolled a cigarette, 
passed his tobacco across to Lambert, and they 
smoked. And no matter if his college hat had 
been only half as big as it was, or his shirt ring- 
streaked and spotted, they would have known 
the stranger for one of their kind, and accepted 
him as such. 


17 


CHAPTER n 

WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 

W HEN Taterleg roused the camp before 
the east was light, Lambert noted that 
another man had ridden in. This was a wiry 
young fellow with a short nose and fiery face, 
against which his scant eyebrows and lashes 
were as white as chalk. 

His presence in the camp seemed to put a re- 
straint on the spirits of the others, some of 
whom greeted him by the name Jim, others ig- 
noring him entirely. Among these latter was 
the black-haired man who had given Lambert 
his title and elevated him to the nobility of the 
Bad Lands. On the face of it there was a crow 
to be picked between them. 

Jim was belted with a pistol and heeled with 
a pair of those long-roweled Mexican spurs, 
such as had gone out of fashion on the western 
range long before his day. He leaned on his el- 
bow near the fire, his legs stretched out in a 
18 


WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 


way that obliged Taterleg to walk round the 
spurred boots as he went between his cooking 
and the supplies in the wagon, the tailboard of 
which was his kitchen table. 

If Taterleg resented this lordly obstruction, 
he did not discover it by word or feature. He 
went on humming a tune without words as he 
worked, handing out biscuits and ham to the 
hungry crew. Jim had eaten his breakfast al- 
ready, and was smoking a cigarette at his ease. 
Now and then he addressed somebody in ob- 
scene jocularity. 

Lambert saw that Jim turned his eyes on him 
now and then with sneering contempt, but said 
inothing. When the men had made a hasty end 
of their breakfast three of them started to the 
corral. The young man who had humorously 
enumerated the virtues of the All-in-One, whom 
the others called Spence, was of this number. 
He turned back, offering Lambert his hand with 
a smile. 

‘‘I’m glad I met you, Duke, and I hope you’ll 
do well wherever you travel,” he said, with 
such evident sincerity and good feeling that 
Lambert felt like he was parting from a friend. 

19 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


‘‘ Thanks, old feller, and the same to you/’ 

Spence went on to saddle his horse, whistling 
as he scuffed through the low sage. Jim sat up. 

‘‘ I’ll make you whistle through your ribs,” 
he snarled after him. 

It was Sunday. These men who remained in 
camp were enjoying the infrequent luxury of a 
day off. With the first gleam of morning they 
got out their razors and shaved, and Siwash, 
who seemed to be the handy man and chief 
counselor of the outfit, cut everybody’s hair, 
with the exception of Jim, who had just re- 
turned from somewhere on the train, and still 
had the scent of the barber-shop on him, and 
Taterleg, who had mastered the art of shin- 
gling himself, and kept his hand in by constant 
practice. 

Lambert mended his tire, using an old rub- 
ber boot that Taterleg found kicking around 
camp to plug the big holes in his outer tube. 
He was for going on then, but Siwash and the 
others pressed him to stay over the day, to 
which invitation he yielded without great ar- 
gument. 

There was nothing ahead of him but desola- 
20 


WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 


tion, said Taterleg, a country so rough that it 
tiied a horse to travel it. Eanchhouses were 
farther apart as a man proceeded, and beyond 
that, mountains. It looked to Taterleg as if 
he^d better give it up. 

That was so, according to the opinion of Si- 
wash. To his undoubted knowledge, covering 
the history of twenty-four years, no agent ever 
had penetrated that far before. Having broken 
this record on a bicycle, Lambert ought to be 
satisfied. If he was bound to travel, said Si- 
wash, his advice would be to travel back. 

It seemed to Lambert that the bottom was all 
out of his plans, indeed. It would be far better 
to chuck the whole scheme overboard and go to 
work as a cowboy if they would give him a job. 
That was nearer the sphere of his intended fu- 
ture activities; that was getting down to the 
root and foundation of a business which had a 
ladder in it whose rungs were not made of any 
general agent’s hot air. 

After his hot and heady way of quick deci- 
sions and planning to completion before he even 
had begun, Lambert was galloping the Bad 
Lands as superintendent of somebody’s ranch, 
21 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


having made the leap over all the trifling years, 
with their trifling details of hardship, low 
wages, loneliness, and isolation in a wink. 
From superintendent he galloped swiftly on his 
fancy to a white ranchhouse by some calm riv- 
erside, his herds around him, his big hat on his 
head, market quotations coming to him by tele- 
graph every day, packers appealing to him to 
ship five trainloads at once to save their gov- 
ernment contracts. 

What is the good of an imagination if a man 
cannot ride it, and feel the wind in his face as 
he flies over the world? Even though it is a 
liar and a trickster, and a rifler of time which 
a drudge of success would be stamping into 
gold, it is better for a man than wine. He can 
return from his wide excursions with no deeper 
injury than a sigh. 

Lambert came back to the reality, broaching 
the subject of a job. Here Jim took notice and 
cut into the conversation, it being his first word 
to the stranger. 

‘‘ Sure you can git a job, bud,’^ he said, com- 
ing over to where Lambert sat with Siwash and 
Taterleg, the latter peeling potatoes for a stew, 
22 


WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 


somebody having killed a calf. “ The old man 
needs a couple of hands ; he told me to keep my 
eye open for anybody that wanted a job.” 

I^m glad to hear of it,” said Lambert, 
warming up at the news, feeling that he must 
have been a bit severe in his judgment of Jim, 
which had not been altogether favorable. 

‘‘ Hedl be over in the morning; you’d better 
hang around.” 

Seeing the foundation of a new fortune tak- 
ing shape, Lambert said he would hang 
around.” They all applauded his resolution, 
for they all appeared to like him in spite of 
his appearance, which was distinctive, indeed, 
among the somber colors of that sage-gray land. 

Jim inquired if he had a horse, the growing 
interest of a friend in his manner. Hearing the 
facts of the case from Lambert — before dawn 
he had heard them from Taterleg — he ap- 
peared concerned almost to the point of being 
troubled. 

“ You’ll have to git you a horse, Duke; you’ll 
have to ride up to the boss when you hit him for 
a job. He never was known to hire a man off 
the ground, and I guess if you was to head at 
23 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


him on that bicycle, he’d blow a hole through 
you as big as a can of salmon. Any of you fel- 
lers got a horse you want to trade the Duke for 
his bicycle! ” 

The inquiry brought out a round of some- 
what cloudy witticism, with proposals to Lam- 
bert for an exchange on terms rather embar- 
rassing to meet, seeing that even the least pre- 
posterous was not sincere. Taterleg winked to 
assure him that it was all banter, without a bit 
of harm at the bottom of it, which Lambert un- 
derstood very well without the services of a 
commentator. 

Jim brightened up presently, as if he saw a 
gleam that might lead Lambert out of the dif- 
ficulty. He had an extra horse himself, not 
much of a horse to look at, but as good-hearted 
a horse as a man ever throwed a leg over, and 
that wasn ’t no lie, if you took him the right side 
on. But you had to take him the right side on, 
and humor him, and handle him like eggs till 
he got used to you. Then you had as purty a 
little horse as a man ever throwed a leg over, 
anywhere. 

Jim said he’d offer that horse, only he was 
24 


WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 


a little bashful in the presence of strangers — 
meaning the horse — and didn’t show up in a 
style to make his owner proud of him. The 
trouble with that horse was he used to belong 
to a one-legged man, and got so accustomed to 
the feel of a one-legged man on him that he was 
plumb foolish between two legs. 

That horse didn’t have much style to him, and 
no gait to speak of ; but he was as good a cow- 
horse as ever chawed a bit. If the Duke thought 
he ’d be able to ride him, he was welcome to him. 
Taterleg winked what Lambert interpreted as a 
warning at that point, and in the faces of the 
others there were little gleams of humor, which 
they turned their heads, or bent to study the 
ground, as Siwash did, to hide. 

‘‘ Well, I’m not much on a horse,” Lambert 
confessed. 

‘‘You look like a man that’d been on a horse 
a time or two,” said Jim, with a knowing in- 
flection, a shrewd flattery. 

“ I used to ride around a little, but that’s 
been a good while ago.” 

“A feller never forgits how to ride, ’’^•Siwash 
put in; “ and if a man wants to work on the 
25 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


range, he’s got to ride ’less’n he goes and gits 
a job runnin’ sheep, and that’s below any man 
that is a man.” 

Jim sat pondering the question, hands hooked 
in front of his knees, a match in his mouth be- 
side his unlighted cigarette. 

I been thinkin’ I’d sell that horse,” said he 
reflectively. Ain’t got no use for him much; 
but I don’t know.” 

He looked off over the chuck wagon, through 
the tops of the scrub pines in which the camp 
was set, drawing his thin, white eyebrows, 6on- 
sidering the case. 

Winter cornin’ on and hay to buy,” said Si- 
wash. 

That’s what I’ve been thinkin’ and studyin’ 
over. Shucks ! I don ’t need that horse. I tell 
you what I’ll do, Duke ” — turning to Lambert, 
brisk as with a gush of sudden generosity — 
‘‘ if you can ride that old pelter. I’ll give him 
to you for a present. And I bet you’ll not git 
as cheap an offer of a horse as that ever in your 
life ag’in.” 

I think it’s too generous — I wouldn’t want 
to take advantage of it, ’ ’ Lambert told him, try- 
26 


WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 


ing to show a modesty in the matter that he did 
not feel. 

‘‘ I ain’t a-favorin’ yon, Duke; not a dollar. 
If I needed that horse, I’d hang onto him, and 
you wouldn’t git him a cent under thirty-five 
bucks ; but when a man don ’t need a horse, and 
it’s a expense on him, he can afford to give it 
away — he can give it away and make money. 
That’s what I’m a-doin’, if you want to take me 
up.” 

‘‘ I’ll take a look at him, Jim.” 

Jim got up with eagerness, and went to fetch 
a saddle and bridle from under the wagon. The 
others came into the transaction with lively in- 
terest. Only Taterleg edged round to Lambert, 
and whispered with his head turned away to 
look like innocence: 

Watch out for him — he’s a bal ’-faced hy- 
eeny! ” 

They trooped off to the corral, which was a 
temporary enclosure made of wire run among 
the little pines. Jim brought the horse out. It 
stood tamely enough to be saddled, with head 
drooping indifferently, and showed no deeper 
interest and no resentment over the operation 
27 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


of bridling, Jim talking all the time he worked, 
like the faker that he was, to draw otf a too-close 
inspection of his wares. 

Old Whetstone ain^t much to look at,’’ he 
said, “ and as I told you. Mister, he ain’t got no 
fancy gait ; but he can bust the middle out of the 
breeze when he lays out a straight-ahead run. 
Ain’t a horse on this range can touch his tail 
when old WThetstone throws a ham into it and 
lets out his stren’th.” 

He looks like he might go some,” Lambert 
commented in the vacuous way of a man who 
felt that he must say something, even though 
he didn’t know anything about it. 

Whetstone was rather above the stature of 
the general run of range horses, with clean legs 
and a good chest. But he was a hammer-headed, 
white-eyed, short-maned beast, of a pale water- 
color yellow, like an old dish. He had a beaten- 
down, bedraggled, and dispirited look about him, 
as if he had carried men’s burdens beyond his 
strength for a good while, and had no heart in 
him to take the road again. He had a scoun- 
drelly way of rolling his eyes to watch all that 
went on about him without turning his head. 

28 


WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 


Jim girthed him and cinched him, soundly 
and securely, for no matter who was pitched off 
and smashed up in that ride, he didn’t want the 
saddle to turn and be ruined. 

Well, there he stands, Duke, and saddle and 
bridle goes with him if you ’re able to ride him. 
I’ll be generous; I won’t go half-way with you; 
I’ll be whole hog or none. Saddle and bridle 
goes with Whetstone, all a free gift, if you can 
ride him, Duke. I want to start you up right. ’ ’ 
It was a safe offer, taking all precedent into 
account, for no man ever had ridden Whetstone, 
not even his owner. The beast was an outlaw 
of the most pronounced type, with a repertory 
of tricks, calculated to get a man off his back, 
so extensive that he never seemed to repeat. 
He stood always as docilely as a camel to be 
saddled and bridled, with what method in this 
apparent docility no man versed in horse philos-, 
ophy ever had been able to reason out. Per- 
haps it was that he had been born with a spite 
against man, and this was his scheme for luring 
him on to his discomfiture and disgrace. 

It was an expectant little group that stood by 
to witness this greenhorn’s rise and fall. Ac- 
29 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


wording to his established methods, Whetstone 
would allow him to mount, still standing with 
that indifferent droop to his head. But one who 
was sharp would observe that he was rolling his 
old white eyes back to see, tipping his sharp ear 
like a wildcat to hear every scrape and creak 
of the leather. Then, with the man in the sad- 
dle, nobody knew what he would do. 

That uncertainty was what made Whetstone 
valuable and interesting beyond any outlaw in 
the world. Men grew accustomed to the tricks 
of ordinary pitching broncos, in time, and the 
novelty and charm were gone. Besides, there 
nearly always was somebody who could ride the 
worst of them. Not so Whetstone. He had won 
a good deal of money for Jim, and everybody in 
camp knew that thirty-five dollars wasn T more 
than a third of the value that his owner put 
upon him. 

There was boundless wonder among them, 
then, and no little admiration, when this stran- 
ger who had come into that unlikely place on a 
bicycle leaped into the saddle so quickly that 
old Whetstone was taken completely by sur- 
prise, and held him with such a strong hand and 
80 


WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 


stiff rein that his initiative was taken from him. 

The greenhorn ^s next maneuver was to swing 
the animal round till he lost his head, then clap 
heels to him and send him off as if he had busi- 
ness for the day laid out ahead of him. 

It was the most amazing start that anybody 
ever had been known to make on Whetstone, 
and the most startling and enjoyable thing 
about it was that this strange, overgrown boy, 
with his open face and guileless speech, had 
played them all for a bunch of suckers, and 
knew more about riding in a minute than they 
ever had learned in their lives. 

Jim Wilder stood by, swearing by all his ob- 
scene deities that if that man hurt Whetstone, 
he’d kill him for his hide. But he began to feel 
better in a little while. Hope, even certainty, 
picked up again. Whetstone was coming to 
himself. Perhaps the old rascal had only been 
elaborating his scheme a little at the start, and 
was now about to show them that their faith in 
him was not misplaced. 

The horse had come to a sudden stop, legs 
stretched so wide that it seemed as if he surely 
must break in the middle. But he gathered his 
31 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


feet together so quickly that the next view pre- 
sented him with his back arched like a fighting 
cat’s. And there on top of him rode the Duke, 
his small brown hat in place, his gay shirt ruf- 
fling in the wind. 

After that there came, so quickly that it made 
the mind and eye hasten to follow, all the tricks 
that Whetstone ever had tried in his past tri- 
umphs over men; and through all of them, 
sharp, shrewd, unexpected, startling as some of 
them were, that little brown hat rode untroubled 
on top. Old Whetstone was as wet at the end 
of ten minutes as if he had swum a river. He 
grunted with anger as he heaved and lashed, 
he squealed in his resentful passion as he 
swerved, lunged, pitched, and clawed the air. 

The little band of spectators cheered the 
Duke, calling loudly to inform him that he was 
the only man who ever had stuck that long. The 
Duke waved his hat in acknowledgement, and 
put it back on with deliberation and exactness, 
while old Whetstone, as mad as a wet hen, tried 
to roll down suddenly and crush his legs. 

Nothing to be accomplished by that old trick. 
The Duke pulled him up with a wrench that 
32 


WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 


made him squeal, and Whetstone, lifted off his 
forelegs, attempted to complete the backward 
turn and catch his tormentor under the saddle. 
But that was another trick so old that the sim- 
plest horseman knew how to meet it. The next 
thing he knew. Whetstone was galloping along 
like a gentleman, just wind enough in him to 
carry him, not an ounce to spare. 

Jim TV^ilder was swearing himself blue. It 
was a trick, an imposition, he declared. No cir- 
cus-rider could come there and abuse old WTiet- 
stone that way and live to eat his dinner. No- 
body appeared to share his view of it. They 
were a unit in declaring that the Duke beat any 
man handling a horse they ever saw. If Whet- 
stone didn’t get him off pretty soon, he would 
be whipped and conquered, his belly on the 
ground. 

If he hurts that horse I’ll blow a hole in 
him as big as a can of salmon ! ” Jim declared. 

Take your medicine like a man, Jim,” Si- 
wash advised. “You might know somebody ’d 
come along that’d ride him, in time.” 

“ Yes, come along! ” said Jim with a sneer. 

Wlietstone had begun to collect himself out 
33 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


on the flat among the sagebrush a quarter of 
a mile away. The frenzy of desperation was 
in him. He was resorting to the raw, low, com- 
mon tricks of the ordinary outlaw, even to bit- 
ing at his rider’s legs. That ungentlemanly be- 
havior was costly, as he quickly learned, at the 
expense of a badly cut mouth. He never had 
met a rider before who had energy to spare 
from his efforts to stick in the saddle to slam 
him a big kick in the mouth when he doubled 
himself to make that vicious snap. The sound 
of that kick carried to the corral. 

‘‘ I’ll fix you for that ! ” Jim swore. 

He was breathing as hard as his horse, sweat 
of anxiety running down his face. The Duke 
was bringing the horse back, his spirit pretty 
well broken, it appeared. 

What do you care what he does to him? It 
ain ’t your horse no more. ’ ’ 

It was Taterleg who said that, standing near 
Jim, a little way behind him, as gorgeous as a 
bridegroom in the bright sun. 

You fellers can’t ring me in on no game 
like that and beat me out of my horse! ” said 
Jim, redder than ever in his passion. 

34 


WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 


‘‘ Who do you mean, rung you in, you little, 
flannel-faced fiste 1 Si wash demanded, whirl- 
ing round on him with blood in his eye. 

Jim was standing with his legs apart, bent a 
little at the knees, as if he intended to make a 
jump. His right hand was near the butt of his 
gun, his fingers were clasping and unclasping, 
as if he limbered them for action. Taterleg 
slipped up behind him on his toes, and jerked 
the gun from Jim’s scabbard with quick and 
sure hand. He backed away with it, presenting 
it with determined mien as Jim turned on him 
and cursed him by all his lurid gods. 

If you fight anybody in this camp today, 
Jim, you’ll fight like a man,” said Taterleg, 
or you’ll hobble out of it on three legs, like 
a wolf.” 

The Duke was riding old Whetstone like a 
feather, letting him have his spurts of kicking 
and stitf-legged bouncing without any effort to 
restrain him at all. There wasn’t much steam 
in the outlaw’s antics now; any common man 
could have ridden him without losing his hat. 
Jim had drawn apart from the others, resent- 


1 Fice — dog. 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


ful of the distrust that Taterleg had sho^vn, but 
more than half of his courage and bluster taken 
away from him with his gun. He was swearing 
more volubly than ever to cover his other de- 
ficiencies ; but he was a man to be feared only 
when he had his weapon under his hand. 

The Duke had brought the horse almost back 
to camp when the animal was taken with an ex- 
traordinarily vicious spasm of pitching, broken 
by sudden efforts to fling himself down and roll 
over on his persistent rider. The Duke let him 
have it liis way, all but the rolling, for a while ; 
then he appeared to lose patience with the stub- 
born beast. He headed him into the open, laid 
the quirt to him, and galloped toward the hills. 

That’s the move — run the devil out of 
him,” said one. 

The Duke kept him going, and going for all 
there was in him. Horse and rider were dim in 
the dust of the heated race against the evil pas- 
sion, the untamed demon, in the savage crea- 
ture’s heart. It began to look as if Lambert 
never intended to come back. Jim saw it that 
way. He came over to Taterleg as hot as a hor- 
net. 


36 


WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW 


^ ‘ Give me that gun — I goin ^ after him ! * ^ 

‘‘ You’ll have to go without it, Jim.” 

Jim blasted him to sulphurous perdition, and 
split him with forked lightning from his blas- 
phemous tongue. 

HeTl come back; he’s just runnin’ the vine- 
gar out of him, ’ ’ said one. 

Come back — hell! ” said Jim. 

If he don’t come back, that’s his business. 
A man can go wherever he wants to go on his 
own horse, I guess.” 

That was the observation of Siwash, standing 
there rather glum and out of tune over Jim’s 
charge that they had rung the Duke in on him 
to beat him out of his animal. 

It was a put-up job! I’ll split that feller 
like a hog ! ’ ’ 

Jim left them with that declaration of his 
benevolent intention, hurrying to the corral 
where his horse was, his saddle on the ground 
by the gate. They watched him saddle, and saw 
him mount and ride after the Duke, with no 
comment on his actions at all. 

The Duke was out of sight in the scrub tim- 
ber at the foot of the hills, but his dust still 
37 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


A 

floated like the wake of a swift boat, showing 
the way he had gone. 

Yes, you will! ” said Taterleg. 
Meaningless, irrelevant, as that fragmentary 
ejaculation seemed, the others understood. 
They grinned, and twisted wise heads, spat out 
their tobacco, and went back to dinner. 


33 


CHAPTER in 

AN EMPTY SADDLE 

T he Duke was seen coming back before 
the meal was over, across the little plain 
between camp and hills. A quarter of a mile 
behind him Jim Wilder rode, whether seen or 
unseen by the man in the lead they did not know. 

Jim had fallen behind somewhat by the time 
the Duke reached camp. The admiration of all 
hands over this triumph against horseflesh and 
the devil within it was so great that they got 
up to welcome the Duke, and shake hands with 
him as he left the saddle. He was as fresh and 
nimble, unshaken and serene, as when he 
mounted old Whetstone more than an hour be- 
fore. 

"Whetstone was a conquered beast, beyond 
any man’s doubt. He stood with flaring nos- 
trils, scooping in his breath, not a dry hair on 
him, not a dash of vinegar in his veins. 
Where’s Jim? ” the Duke inquired. 

39 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


CominV’ Taterleg replied, waving his 
hand afield. 

What^s he doin^ out there — where’s he 
been I ” the Duke inquired, a puzzled look in his 
face, searching their sober countenances for his 
answer. 

“ He thought you ” 

‘‘ Let him do his own talkin’, kid,” said Si- 
wash, cutting olf the cowboy’s explanation. 

Siwash looked at the Duke shrewdly, his head 
cocked to one side like a robin listening for a 
worm. 

What outfit was you with before you 
started out soilin’ them tooth-puller-can-opener 
machines, son? ” he inquired. 

Outfit? What kind of an outfit? ” 

Ranch, innercence; what range was you 
ridin’ on? ” 

‘ ‘ I never rode any range, I ’m sorry to say. ’ ’ 

Well, where in the name of mustard did 
you learn to ride? ” 

I used to break range horses for five dol- 
lars a head at the Kansas City Stockyards. 
That was a good while ago ; I ’m all out of prac- 
tice now.” 


40 


AN EMPTY SADDLE 


‘‘ Yes, and I bet you can throw a rope, too/’ 

‘‘ Nothing to speak of.” 

“ Nothing to speak of! Yes, I’ll het you 
nothing to speak of ! ” 

Jim didn’t stop at the corral to turn in his 
horse, but came clattering into camp, madder 
for the race that the Duke had led him in igno- 
rance of his pursuit, as every man could see. 
He flung himself out of the saddle with a flip 
like a bird taking to the wing, his spurs cutting 
the ground as he came over to where Lambert 
stood. 

Maybe you can ride my horse, you damn 
granger, but you can’t ride me! ” he said. 

He threw off his vest as he spoke, that being 
his only superfluous garment, and bowed his 
back for a fight. Lambert looked at him with 
a flush of indignant contempt spreading in his 
face. 

‘‘ You don’t need to get sore about it; I only 
took you up at your own game,” he said. 

‘‘No circus-ringer’s goin’ to come in here 
and beat me out of my horse. You’ll either put 
him back in that corral or you’ll chaw leather 
with me! ” 


41 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


‘‘I’ll put him back in the corral when I’m 
ready, but I’ll put him back as mine. I won 
him on your own bet, and it’ll take a whole lot 
better man than you to take him away from 
me.” 

In the manner of youth and independence, 
Lambert got hotter with every word, and after 
that there wasn’t much room for anything else 
to be said on either side. They mixed it, and 
they mixed it briskly, for Jim’s contempt for a 
man who wore a hat like that supplied the cour- 
age that had been drained from him when he 
was disarmed. 

There was nothing epic in that fight, nothing 
heroic at all. It was a wildcat struggle in the 
dust, no more science on either side than na- 
ture put into their hands at the beginning. But 
they surely did kick up a lot of dust. It would 
have bfeen a peaceful enough little fight, with a 
handshake at the end and all over in an hour, 
very likely, if Jim hadn’t managed to get out 
his knife when he felt himself in for a trimming. 

It was a mean-looking knife, with a buck- 
horn handle and a four-inch blade that leaped 
open on pressure of a spring. Its type was 
42 


AN EMPTY SADDLE 


widely popular all over the West in those days, 
but one of them would be almost a curiosity 
now. But Jim had it out, anyhow, lying on his 
back with the Duke ^s knee on his ribs, and was 
whittling away before any man could raise a 
hand to stop him. 

The first slash split the Duke’s cheek for two 
inches just below his eye ; the next tore his shirt 
sleeve from shoulder to elboyr, grazing the skin 
as it passed. And there somebody kicked Jim ’s 
elbow and knocked the knife out of his hand. 

“ Let him up, Duke,” he said. 

Lambert released the strangle hold that he 
had taken on Jim’s throat and looked up. It 
was Spence, standing there with his horse be- 
hind him. He laid his hand on Lambert’s shoul- 
der. 

‘ ‘ Let him up, Duke, ’ ’ he said again. 

Lambert got up, bleeding a cataract. Jim 
bounced to his feet like a spring, his hand to his 
empty holster, a look of dismay in his blanch- 
ing face. 

That’s your size, you nigger! ” Spence 
said, kicking the knife beyond Jim’s reach. 

That’s the kind of a low-down cuss you al- 
43 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


ways was. This man’s our guest, and when you 
pull a knife on him you pull it on me ! ” 

You know I ain’t got a gun on me, 
you ” 

Git it, you sneakin’ houn’! ” 

Jim looked round for Taterleg. 

“ Where’s my gun? you greasy potslinger! ” 
** Give it to him, whoever ’s got it.” 

Taterleg produced it. Jim began backing off 
as soon as he had it in his hand, watching 
Spence alertly. Lambert leaped between them. 

Gentlemen, don’t go to shootin’ over a little 
thing like this ! ” he begged. 

Taterleg came between them, also, and 
Siwash, quite blocking up the fairway. 

Now, boys, put up your guns; this is Sun- 
day, you know,” Siwash said. 

^ ‘ Give me room, men ! ’ ’ Spence commanded, 
in voice that trembled with passion, with the 
memory of old quarrels, old wrongs, which this 
last in&ult to the camp’s guest gave the excuse 
for wiping out. There was something in his 
tone not to be denied ; they fell out of his path as 
if the wind had blown them. Jim fired, his 
elbow against his ribs. 

44 


AN EMPTY SADDLE 


Too confident of his own speed, or forgetting 
that Wilder already had his weapon out, Spence 
crumpled at the knees, toppled backward, fell. 
His pistol, half-drawn, dropped from the hol- 
ster and lay at his side. Wilder came a step 
nearer and fired another shot into the fallen 
man’s body, dead as he must have known him 
to be. He ran on to his horse, mounted, and 
rode away. 

Some of the others hurried to the wagon after 
their guns. Lambert, for a moment shocked 
to the heart by the sudden horror of the trag- 
edy, bent over the body of the man who had 
taken up his quarrel without even knowing the 
merits of it, or whose fault lay at the beginning. 
A look into his face was enough to tell that there 
was nothing within the compass of this earth 
that could bring back life to that strong, young 
body, struck down in a breath like a broken 
vase. He looked up. Jim Wilder was bending 
in the saddle as he rode swiftly away, as if he 
expected them to shoot. A great fire of resent- 
ment for this man’s destructive deed swept over 
him, hotter than the hot blood wasting from his 
wounded cheek. The passion of vengeance 
45 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


wrenched his joints, his hand shook and grew 
cold, as he stooped again to unfasten the belt 
about his friend ^s dead body. 

Anned with the weapon that had been drawn 
a fraction of a second too late, drawn in the 
chivalrous defense of hospitality, the high 
courtesy of an obligation to a stranger, Lambert 
mounted the horse that had come to be his at 
the price of this tragedy, and galloped in pur- 
suit of the fleeing man. 

Some of the young men were hurrying to the 
corral, belting on their guns as they ran to fetch 
their horses and join the pursuit. Siwash called 
them back. 

‘ ‘ Leave it to him, boys ; it ’s his by rights, ’ ’ 
he said. 

Taterleg stood looking after the two riders, 
the hindmost drawing steadily upon the leader, 
and stood looking so until they disappeared in 
the timber at the base of the hills. 

My God! ” said he. And again, after a 
little while: ‘‘ My God! ” 

It was dusk when Lambert came back, leading 
Jim Wilder’s horse. There was blood on the 
empty saddle. 


46 


CHAPTER IV 

^^AND SPEAK IN PASSING ’’ 

T he events of that Sunday introduced 
Lambert into the Bad Lands and estab- 
lished his name and fame. Within three months 
after going to work for the Syndicate ranch he 
was known for a hundred miles around as the 
man who had broken Jim Wilder’s outlaw and 
won the horse by that unparalleled feat. 

That was the prop to his fame — that he had 
broken Jim Wilder’s outlaw. Certainly he was 
admired and commended for the unhesitating 
action he had taken in avenging the death of his 
friend, but in that he had done only what was 
expected of any man worthy the name. Break- 
ing the outlaw was a different matter entirely. 
In doing that he had accomplished what was be- 
lieved to be beyond the power of any living 
man. 

According to his own belief, his own con- 
science, Lambert had made a bad start. A 
47 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


career that had its beginning in contentions and 
violence, enough of it crowded into one day to 
make more than the allotment of an ordinary 
life, could not terminate with any degree of 
felicity and honor. They thought little of kill- 
ing a man in that country, it seemed; no more 
than a perfunctory inquiry, to fulfill the letter 
of the law, had been made by the authorities 
into Jim Wilder death. 

While it relieved him to know that the law 
held his justification to be ample, there was a 
shadow following him which he could not evade 
in any of the hilarious diversions common to 
those wild souls of the range. 

It troubled him that he had killed a man, even 
in a fair fight in the open field with the justifica- 
tion of society at his back. In his sleep it har- 
ried him with visions ; awake, it oppressed him 
like a sorrow, or the memory of a shame. He 
became solemn and silent as a chastened man, 
seldom smiling, laughing never. 

When he drank wdth his companions in the 
little saloon at Misery, the loading station on 
the railroad, he took his liquor as gravely as 
the sacrament ; when he raced them he rode with 
48 


-‘AND SPEAK IN PASSING 


face grim as an Indian, never whooping in vic- 
tory, never swearing in defeat. 

He had left even his own lawful and proper 
name behind him with his past. Far and near 
he was known as the Duke of Chimney Butte, 
shortened in cases of direct address to 
“ Duke.’’ He didn’t resent it, rather took a 
sort of grim pride in it, although he felt at times 
that it was one more mark of his surrender to 
circumstances whose current he might have 
avoided at the beginning by the exercise of a 
proper man’s sense. 

A man was expected to drink a good deal of 
the overardent spirits which were sold at 
Misery. If he could drink without becoming 
noisy, so much the more to his credit, so much 
higher he stood in the estimation of his fellows 
as a copper-bottomed sport of the true blood. 
The Duke could put more of that notorious 
whisky under cover, and still contain himself, 
than any man they ever had seen in Misery. 
The more he drank the glummer he became, but 
he never had been known either to weep or 
curse. 

Older men spoke to him with respect, younger 
49 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


ones approached him with admiration, unable 
to understand what kind of a safety-valve a man 
had on his mouth that would keep his steam in 
when that Misery booze began to sizzle in his 
pipes. His horse was a subject of interest 
almost equal to himself. 

Under his hand old Whetstone — although 
not more than seven — had developed unex- 
pected qualities. When the animaUs persecu- 
tion ceased, his perversity fled. He grew into a 
well-conditioned creature, sleek of coat, beauti- 
ful of tail as an Arab barb, bright of eye, hand- 
some to behold. His speed and endurance were 
matters of as much note as his outlawry had 
been but a little while before, and his intelli- 
gence was something almost beyond belief. 

Lambert had grown exceedingly fond of him, 
holding him more in the estimation of a com- 
panion than the valuation of a dumb creature 
of burden. When they rode the long watches 
at night he talked to him, and Whetstone would 
put back his sensitive ear and listen, and toss 
his head in joyful appreciation of his master’s 
confidence and praise. 

Few horses had beaten Whetstone in a race 
50 


“AND SPEAK IN PASSING 


since he became the Duke^s property. It was 
believed that none on that range could do it if 
the Duke wanted to put him to his limit. It was 
said that the Duke lost only such races as he 
felt necessary to the continuance of his pros- 
perity. 

Racing was one of the main diversions when 
the cowboys from the surrounding ranches met 
at Misery on a Sunday afternoon, or when load- 
ing cattle there. Few trains stopped at Misery, 
a circumstance resented by the cowboys, who 
believed the place should be as important to all 
the world as it was to them. To show their con- 
tempt for this aloof behavior they usually raced 
the trains, frequently outrunning those west- 
ward bound as they labored up the long grade. 

Freight trains especially they took delight in 
beating, seeing how it nettled the train crews. 
There was nothing more delightful in any pro- 
gram of amusement that a cowboy could con- 
ceive than riding abreast of a laboring freight 
engine, the sulky engineer crowding every 
pound of power into the cylinders, the sooty 
fireman humping his back throwing in coal. 
Only one triumph would have been sweeter — 
51 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


to outran the big passenger train from Chicago 
with the brass-fenced car at the end. 

No man ever had done that yet, although 
many had tried. The engineers all knew what 
to expect on a Sunday afternoon when they 
approached Misery, where the cowboys came 
through the fence and raced the trains on the 
right-of-way. A long, level stretch of soft gray 
earth, set with bunches of grass here and there, 
began a mile beyond the station, unmarred by 
steam-shovel or grader’s scraper. A man could 
ride it with his eyes shut; a horse could cover 
it at its best. 

That was the racing ground over which they 
had contended with the Chicago-Puget Sound 
flier for many years, and a place which engi- 
neers and firemen prepared to pass quickly 
while yet a considerable distance away. It 
was a sight fo see the big engine round the curve 
below, its plume of smoke rising straight for 
twenty feet, streaming back like a running girl’s 
hair, the cowboys all set in their saddles, wait- 
ing to go. 

Engineers on the flier were not so sulky about 
it, knowing that the race was theirs before it 
52 


“AND SPEAK IN PASSING 


was run. Usually they leaned out of the win- 
dow and urged the riders on with beckoning, 
derisive hand, while the fireman stood by grin- 
ning, confident of the head of steam he had 
begun storing for this emergency far down the 
road. 

Porters told passengers about these wild 
horsemen in advance, and eager faces lined the 
windows on that side of the cars as they ap- 
proached Misery, and all who could pack on the 
end of the observation car assembled there. In 
spite of its name. Misery was quite a comfort- 
able break in the day^s monotony for travelers 
on a Sunday afternoon. 

Amid the hardships and scant diversions of 
this life, Lambert spent his first winter in the 
Bad Lands, drinking in the noisy revels at 
Misery, riding the long, bitter miles back to the 
ranch, despising himself for being so mean and 
low. It was a life in which a man’s soul would 
either shrink to nothing or expand until it be- 
came too large to find contentment within the 
horizon of such an existence. 

Some of them expanded up to the size for 
ranch owners, superintendents, bosses ; stopped 
53 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


there, set in their mold. Lambert never had 
heard of one stretching so wide that he was 
drawn out of himself entirely, his eyes fixed on 
the far light of a nobler life. He liked to 
imagine a man so inspired out of the lonely 
watches, the stormy rides, the battle against 
blizzard and night. 

This train of thought had carried him away 
that gentle spring day as he rode to Misery. He 
resented the thought that he might have to 
spend his youth as a hired servant in this rough 
occupation, unremunerative below the hope of 
ever gaining enough to make a start in busi- 
ness for himself. There was no romance in it, 
for all that had been written, no beautiful 
daughter of the ranch ovmer to be married, and 
a fortune gained with her. 

Daughters there must be, indeed, among the 
many stockholders in that big business, but 
they were not available in the Bad Lands. The 
superintendent of the ranch had three or four, 
born to that estate, full of loud laughter, ordi- 
nary as baled hay. A man would be a loser in 
marrying such as they, even with a fortune 
ready made. 


54 


“AND SPEAK IN PASSING 


What better could that rough country offer T 
People are no gentler than their pursuits, no 
finer than the requirements of their lives. 
Daughters of the Bad Lands, such as he had 
seen of them in the wives to whom he once had 
tried to sell the All-in-One, and the superin- 
tendent’s girls were not intended for any other 
life. As for him, if he had to live it out there, 
with the shadow of a dead man at his heels, he 
would live it alone. So he thought, going on his 
way to Misery, where there was to be racing 
that afternoon, and a grand effort to keep up 
with the Chicago flier. 

Lambert never had taken part in that long- 
standing competition. It appeared to him a 
senseless expenditure of horseflesh, a childish 
pursuit of the wind. Yet, foolish as it was, he 
liked to watch them. There was a thrill in the 
sweeping start of twenty or thirty horsemen 
that warmed a man, making him. feel as if he 
must whoop and wave his hat. There was a be- 
lief alive among them that some day a man 
would come who would run the train neck and 
neck to the depot platform. 

Not much distinction in it, even so, said he. 

55 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


But it set him musing and considering as he 
rode, his face quickening out of its somber 
cloud. A little while after his arrival at Misery 
the news went round that the Duke was willing 
at last to enter the race against the flier. 

True to his peculiarities, the Duke had made 
conditions. He was willing to race, but only if 
everybody else would keep out of it and give 
him a clear and open field. Taterleg Wilson, 
the bow-legged camp cook of the Syndicate, 
circulated himself like a petition to gain con- 
sent to this unusual proposal. 

It was asking a great deal of those men to 
give up their established diversion, no matter 
how distinguished the man in whose favor they 
were requested to stand aside. That Sunday 
afternoon race had become as much a fixed in- 
stitution in the Bad Lands as the railroad itself. 
With some argument, some bucking and snort- 
ing, a considerable cost to Taterleg for liquor 
and cigars, they agreed to it. Taterleg said he 
could state, authoritatively, that this would be 
the Duke ’s first, last, and only ride against the 
flier. It would be worth money to stand off 
and watch it, he said, and worth putting money 
56 


“AND SPEAK IN PASSING 


on the result. When, where, would a man ever 
have a chance to see such a race again? Per- 
haps never in his life. 

On time, to a dot, the station agent told the 
committee headed by Taterleg, which had gone 
to inquire in the grave and important manner of 
men conducting a ceremony. The committee 
went back to the saloon, and pressed the Duke 
to have a drink. He refused, as he had refused 
politely and consistently all day. A man could 
fight on booze, he said, but it was a mighty poor 
foundation for business. 

There was a larger crowd in Misery that day 
than usual for the time of year, it being the first 
general holiday after the winter’s hard exac- 
tions. In addition to visitors, all Misery turned 
out to see the race, lining up at the right-of-way 
fence as far as they would go, which was not a 
great distance along. The saloon-keeper could 
see the finish from his door. On the start of it 
he was not concerned, but he had money up on 
the end. 

Lambert hadn ’t as much flesh, by a good many 
pounds, as he had carried into the Bad Lands on 
his bicycle. One who had known him previously 
57 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


would have thought that seven years had 
passed him, making him over completely, in- 
deed, since then. His face was thin, browned 
and weathered, his body sinewy, its leanness 
aggravated by its length. He was as light in 
the saddle as a leaf on the wind. 

He was quite a barbaric figure as he waited 
to mount and ride against the train, which could 
be heard whistling far down the road. Coat- 
less, in flannel shirt, a bright silk handkerchief 
round his neck; calfskin vest, tanned with the 
hair on, its color red and white ; dressed leather 
chaps, a pair of boots that had cost him two- 
thirds of a month’s pay. His hat was like forty 
others in the crowd, doe-colored, worn with the 
high crown full-standing, a leather thong at the 
back of the head, the brim drooping a bit from 
the weather, so broad that his face looked nar- 
rower and sharper in its shadow. 

Nothing like the full-blooded young aggie 
who had come into the Bad Lands to found his 
fortune a little less than a year before, and 
about as different from him in thought and out- 
look upon life as in physical appearance. The 
psychology of environment is a powerful force. 

58 


“AND SPEAK IN PASSING ’’ 


A score or more of horsemen were strung out 
along the course, where they had stationed 
themselves to watch the race at its successive 
stages, and cheer their champion on his way. 
At the starting-point the Duke waited alone; 
at the station a crowd of cowboys lolled in 
their saddles, not caring to make a run to see 
the finish. 

It was customary for the horsemen who raced 
the flier to wait on the ground until the engine 
rounded the curve, then mount and settle to the 
race. It was counted fair, also, owing to the 
headway the train already had, to start a hun- 
dred yards or so before the engine came 
abreast, in order to limber up to the horses^ 
best speed. 

For two miles or more the track ran straight 
after that curve. Misery about the middle of the 
stretch. In that long, straight reach the build- 
ers of the road had begun the easement of the 
stiff grade through the hills beyond. It was 
the beginning of a hard climb, a stretch in which 
west-bound trains gathered headway to carry 
them over the top. Engines came panting 
round that curve, laboring with the strain of 
59 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


their load, speed reduced half, and dropping a 
bit lower as they proceeded up the grade. 

This Sunday, as usual, train crew and pas- 
sengers were on the lookout for the game 
sportsmen of Misery. Already the engineer 
was leaning out of his window, arm extended, 
ready to give the derisive challenge to come on 
as he swept by. 

The Duke was in the saddle, holding in Whet- 
stone with stiff rein, for the animal was trem- 
bling with eagerness to spring away, knowing 
very well from the preparations which had been 
going forward that some big event in the lives 
of his master and himself was pending. The 
Duke held him, looking back over his shoulder, 
measuring the distance as the train came sweep- 
ing grandly round the curve. He waited until 
the engine was within a hundred feet of him be- 
fore he loosed rein and let old Whetstone go. 

A yell ran up the line of spectators as the pale 
yellow horse reached out his long neck, chin 
level against the wind like a swimmer, and ran 
as no horse ever had run on that race-course 
before. Every horseman there knew that the 
Duke was still holding him in, allowing the train 
60 


“AND SPEAK IN PASSING “ 


to creep up on him as if he scorned to take ad- 
vantage of the handicap. 

The engineer saw that this was going to be a 
diiferent kind of race from the yelling, chatter- 
ing troop of wild riders which he had been out- 
running with unbroken regularity. In that yel- 
low streak of horse, that low-bending, bony 
rider, he saw a possibility of defeat and dis- 
grace. His head disappeared out of the window, 
his derisive hand vanished. He was turning 
valves and pulling levers, trying to coax a little 
more power into his piston strokes. 

The Duke held Whetstone back until his wind 
had set to the labor, his muscles flexed, his 
sinews stretched to the race. A third of the 
race was covered when the engine came neck 
and neck with the horse, and the engineer, con- 
fident now, leaned far out, swinging his hand 
like the oar of a boat, and shouted : 

“ Come on! Come on! 

Just a moment too spon this confidence, a mo- 
ment too soon this defiance. It was the Duke ^s 
program to run this thing neck and neck, force 
to force, with no advantage asked or taken. 
Then if he could gather speed and beat the en- 
61 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


gine on the home stretch no man, on the train 
or off, conld say that he had done it with the 
advantage of a handicap. 

There was a great whooping, a great thump- 
ing of hoofs, a monstrous swirl of dust, as the 
riders at the side of the race-course saw the 
Duke ^s maneuver and read his intention. Away 
they swept, a noisy troop, like a flight of black- 
birds, hats off, guns popping, in a scramble to 
get up as close to the finishing line as possible. 

Never before in the long history of that 
unique contest had there been so much excite- 
ment. Porters opened the vestibule doors, al- 
lowing passengers to crowd the steps ; windows 
were opened, heads thrust out, every tongue 
urging the horseman on with cheers. 

The Duke was riding beside the engineer, not 
ten feet between them. More than half the 
course was run, and there the Duke hung, the 
engine not gaining an inch. The engineer was 
on his feet now, hand on the throttle lever, 
although it was open as wide as it could be 
pulled. The fireman was throwing coal into the 
furnace, looking round over his shoulder now 
and then at the persistent horseman who would 
62 


“AND SPEAK IN PASSING ’’ 


not be ontmn, bis eyes white in bis grimy face^ 

On tbe observation car women bung over tbe 
rail at tbe side, waving bandkercbiefs at tbe 
rider’s back; along tbe fence tbe inhabitants 
of Misery broke away like leaves before a wind 
and went running toward tbe depot; ahead of 
tbe racing horse and engine tbe mounted men 
who bad taken a big start rode on toward tbe 
station in a wild, delirious charge. 

Neck and neck with tbe engine old Whet- 
stone ran, throwing bis long legs like a wolf- 
hound, bis long neck stretched, bis ears flat, 
not leaving a hair that he could control out- 
standing to catch the wind. Tbe engineer was 
peering ahead with fixed eyes now, as if be 
feared to look again on this puny combination of 
horse and man that was bolding its own in this 
unequal trial of strength. 

Within three hundred yards of tbe station 
platform, which sloped down at the end like a 
continuation of the course, the Duke touched 
old Whetstone’s neck with the tips of his fin- 
gers. As if he had given a signal upon which 
they had agreed, the horse gathered power, 
grunting as he used to grunt in the days of his 
63 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


outlawry, and bounded away from the cab win- 
dow, where the greasy engineer stood with 
white face and set jaw. 

Yard by yard the horse gained, his long mane 
flying, his long tail astream, foam on his lips, 
forging past the great driving wheels which 
ground against the rails; past the swinging 
piston ; past the powerful black cylinders ; past 
the stubby pilot, advancing like a shadow over 
the track. When Whetstone’s hoofs struck the 
planks of the platform, marking the end of the 
course, he was more than the length of the en- 
gine in the lead. 

The Duke sat there waving his hand solemnly 
to those who cheered him as the train swept 
past, the punchers around him lifting up a joy- 
ful chorus of shots and shouts, showing otf on 
their own account to a considerable extent, but 
sincere over all because of the victory that the 
Duke had won. 

Old Whetstone was standing where he had 
stopped, within a few feet of the track, front 
hoofs on the boards of the platform, not more 
than nicely warmed up for another race, it ap- 
peared. As the observation car passed, a young 
64 


“AND SPEAK IN PASSING 


woman leaned over the rail, handkerchief 
reached out to the Duke as if trying to give it 
to him. 

He saw her only a second before she passed, 
too late to make eVen a futile attempt to possess 
the favor of her appreciation. She laughed, 
waving it to him, holding it out as if iu chal- 
lenge for him to come and take it. Without 
wasting a precious fragment of a second in hesi- 
tation the Duke sent Whetstone thundering 
along the platform in pursuit of the train. 

It seemed a foolish thing to do, and a risky 
venture, for the platform was old, its planks 
were weak in places. It was not above a hundred 
feet long, and beyond it only a short stretch 
of right-of-way until the public road crossed the 
track, the fence running down to the cattle 
guard, blocking his hope of overtaking the 
train. 

More than that, the train was picking up 
speed, as if the engineer wanted to get out of 
sight and hearing of that demonstrative crowd, 
and put his humiliation behind him as quickly as 
possible. No man’s horse could make a start 
with planks under his feet, run two hundred 
65 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BITTTE 


yards and overtake that train, no matter what 
the inducement. That was the thought of every 
man who sat a saddle there and stretched his 
neck to witness this unparalleled streak of folly. 

If Whetstone had run swiftly in the first race, 
he fairly whistled through the air like a wild 
duck in the second. Before he had run the 
length of the platform he had gained on the 
train, his nose almost even with the brass rail- 
ing over which the girl leaned, the handkerchief 
in her hand. Midway between the platform and 
the cattle guard they saw the Duke lean in his 
saddle and snatch the white favor from her 
hand. 

The people on the train end cheered this feat 
of quick resolution, quicker action. But the girl 
whose handkerchief the Duke had won only 
leaned on the railing, holding fast with both 
hands, as if she offered her lips to be kissed, 
and looked at him with a pleasure in her face 
that he could read as the train bore her onward 
into the West. 

The Duke sat there with his hat in his hand, 
gazing after her, only her straining face in his 
vision, centered out of the dust amd widening 
66 


“AND SPEAK IN PASSING 


distance like a star that a man gazes on to fix 
his course before it is overwhelmed by clouds. 

The Duke sat watching after her, the train 
reducing the distance like a vision that melts 
out of the heart with a sigh. She raised her 
hand as the dust closed in the wake of the train. 
He thought she beckoned him. 

So she came, and went, crossing his way in 
the Bad Lands in that hour of his small 
triumph, and left her perfumed token of appre- 
ciation in his hand. The Duke put it away in 
the pocket of his shirt beneath the calfskin vest, 
the faint delicacy of its perfume rising to his 
nostrils like the elusive scent of a violet for 
which one searches the woodland and cannot 
find. 

The dusty hills had gulped the train that car- 
ried her before the Duke rode round the station 
and joined his noisy comrades. Everybody 
shook hands with him, everybody invited him to 
have a drink. He put them oif — friend, ac- 
quaintance, stranger, on their pressing invita- 
tion to drink — with the declaration that his 
horse came first in his consideration. After he 
had put Whetstone in the livery bam and fed 
67 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


him, he would join them for a round, he said. 

They trooped into the saloon to square their 
bets, the Duke going his way to the barn. There 
they drank and grew noisier than before, to 
come out from time to time, mount their horses, 
gallop up and down the road that answered 
Misery for a street, and shoot good ammunition 
into the harmless air. 

Somebody remarked after a while that the 
Duke was a long time feeding that horse. Tater- 
leg and others went to investigate. He had not 
been there, the keeper of the livery bam said. 
A further look around exhausted all the pos- 
sible hiding-places of Misery. The Duke was 
not there. 

Well,’’ said Taterleg, puzzled, “ I guess 
he’s went.” 


68 


CHAPTER V 

FEET UPON THE ROAD 

T ALWAYS thought I’d go out West, but 

A somehow I never got around to it, ’ ’ Tater- 
leg said. ‘ ‘ How far do you aim. to go, Duke ? ’ ’ 

‘‘As far as the notion takes me, I guess.” 

It was about a month after the race that this 
talk between Taterleg and the Duke took place, 
on a calm afternoon in a camp far from the site 
of that one into which the peddler of cutlery 
had trundled his disabled bicycle a year before. 
The Duke had put off his calfskin vest, the 
weather being too hot for it. Even Taterleg 
had made sacrifices to appearance in favor of 
comfort, his piratical corduroys being replaced 
by overalls. 

The D.uke had quit his job, moved by the de- 
sire to travel on and see the world, he said. 
He said no word to any man about the motive 
behind that desire, very naturally, for he was 
not the kind of a man who opened the door of 
69 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


his heart. But to himself he confessed the hun- 
ger for an unknown face, for the lure of an 
onward-beckoning hand which he was no longer 
able to ignore. 

Since that day she had strained over the 
brass railing of the car to hold him in her sight 
until the curtain of dust intervened, he had felt 
her call urging him into the West, the strength 
of her beckoning hand- drawing him the way 
she had gone, to search the world for her and 
find her on some full and glorious day. 

‘‘Was you aimin’ to sell Whetstone and go 
on the train, Duke? ” 

“ No, I’m not goin’ to sell him yet a while.” 

The Duke was not a talkative man on any 
occasion, and now he sat in silence watching the 
cook kneading out a batch of bread, his thoughts 
a thousand miles away. 

Where, indeed, would the journey that he 
was shaping in his intention that minute carry 
him? Somewhere along the railroad between 
there and Puget Sound the beckoning lady had 
left the train; somewhere on that long road 
between mountain and sea she was waiting for 
him to come. 


70 


FEET UPON THE ROAD 


Taterleg stood his loaves in the sun to rise 
for the oven, making a considerable rattling 
about the stove as he put in the fire. A silence 
fell. 

Lambert was waiting for his horse to rest 
a few hours, and, waiting, he sent his dreams 
ahead of him where his feet could not follow 
save by weary roads and slow. 

Between Misery and the end of that railroad 
at the western sea there were many villages, a 
few cities. A passenger might alight from the 
Chicago flier at any of them, and be absorbed in 
the vastness like a drop of water in the desert 
plain. How was he to know where she had left 
the train, or whither she had turned afterward, 
or journeyed, or where she lodged now? It 
seemed beyond finding out. Assuredly it was 
a task too great for the life of youth, so evan- 
escent in the score of time, even though so long 
and heavy to those impatient dreamers who 
draw themselves onward by its golden chain 
to the cold, harsh facts of age. 

It was a foolish quest, a hopeless one. So 
reason said. Romance and youth, and the long- 
ing that he could not define, rose to confute this 
71 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


sober argument, flushed and eager, violet scent 
blowing before. 

Who could tell? and perhaps; rash specula- 
tions, faint promises. The world was not so 
broad that two might never meet in it whose 
ways had touched for one heart-throb and sun- 
dered again in a sigh. All his life he had been 
hearing that it was a small place, after all was 
said. Perhaps, and who can tell ? And so, gal- 
loping onward in the free leash of his ardent 
dreams. 

When was you aimin’ to start, Duke? ” 
Taterleg inquired, after a silence so long that 
Lambert had forgotten he was ther^. 

‘‘ In about another hour.” 

“ I wasn’t tryin’ to hurry you off, Duke. My 
reason for askin’ you was because I thought 
maybe I might be able to go along with you a 
piece of the way, if you don’t object to my kind 
of company.” 

“ Why, you’re not goin’ to jump the job, are 
you? ” 

Yes, I’ve been thinkin’ it over, and I’ve 
made up my mind to draw my time tonight. If 
you’ll put off goin’ till mornin’, I’ll start with 
72 


FEET UPON THE ROAD 


you. We can travel together till our roads 
branch, anyhow.’^ 

ITl be glad to wait for you, old feller. I 

didn’t know — which way ” 

‘‘ Wyoming,” said Taterleg, sighing. ‘‘It’s 
come back on me ag’in. ’ ’ 

‘‘ Well, a feller has to rove and ramble, I 
guess. ’ ’ 

Taterleg sighed, looking off westward with 
dreamy eyes. “ Yes, if he’s got a girl pullin’ 
on his heart,” said he. 

The Duke started as if he had been accused, 
his secret read, his soul laid bare; he felt the 
blood burn in his face, and mount to his eyes 
like a drift of smoke. But Taterleg was uncon- 
scious of this sudden embarrassment, this flash 
of panic for the thing which the Duke believed 
lay so deep in his heart no man could ever find 
it out and laugh at it or make gay over the 
scented romance. Taterleg was still looking 
off in a general direction that was westward, a 
little south of west. 

She’s in Wyoming,” said Taterleg; a 
lady I used to rush out in Great Bend, Kansas, 
a long time ago.” 


73 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Oh/’ said the Duke, relieved and inter- 
ested. “ How long ago was that? ” 

“ Over four years,” sighed Taterleg, as if it 
might have been a quarter of a century. 

‘‘ Not so very long, Taterleg.” 

“ Yes, but a lot of fellers can court a girl in 
four years, Duke. ’ ’ 

The Duke thought it over a spell. ‘‘ Yes, I 
reckon they can,” he allowed. ‘‘ Don’t she ever 
write to you? ” 

“ I guess I’m more to blame than she is on 
that, Duke. She did write, but I was kind of 
sour and dropped her. It’s hard to git away 
from, though; it’s a-comin’ over me ag’in. I 
might ’a’ been married and settled down with 
that girl now, me and her a-runnin’ a oyster 
parlor in some good little railroad town, if it 
hadn’t ’a’ been for a Welshman name of El- 
wood. He was a stonecutter, that Elwood feller 
was, Duke, workin’ on bridge ’butments on the 
Santa Fe. That feller told her I was married 
and had four children ; he come between us and 
bust us up.” 

‘‘ Wasn’t he onery! ” said the Duke, feel- 
ingly- 


74 


FEET UPON THE ROAD 


‘‘ I was chef in the hotel where that girl 
worked waitin’ table, drawin’ down good 
money, and savin’ it, too. But that demed 
Welshman got around her and she growed cold. 
When she left Great Bend she went to Wyo- 
ming to take a job — Lander was the town she 
wrote from, I can put my finger on it in the map 
with my eyes shut. I met her when she was 
leavin’ for the depot, draggin’ along with her 
grip and no Welshman in a mile of her to give 
her a hand. I went up and tipped my hat, but 
I never smiled, Duke, for I was sour over the 
way that girl she’d treated me. I just took hold 
of that grip and carried it to the depot for her 
and tipped my hat to her once more. ^ You ’re a 
gentleman, whatever they say of you, Mr. Wil- 
son,’ she said.” 

She did? ” 

She did, Duke. ‘ You’re a gentleman, Mr. 
Wilson, whatever they say of you,’ she said. 
Them was her words, Duke. ‘ Farewell to you/ 
I said, distant and high-mighty, for I was hurt, 
Duke — I was hurt right down to the bone. ’ ’ 

^ ‘ I bet you was, old feller. ’ ’ 

Farewell to you/ I says, and the tears 
75 




THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


come in her eyes, and she says to me — wipin’ 
’em on a han ’kerchief I give her, nothing any 
Welshman ever done for her, and you can bank 
on that Duke — she says to me : ‘ I ’ll always 
think of you as a gentleman, Mr. Wilson.’ I 
wasn’t onto what that Welshman told her then; 
I didn’t know the straight of it till she wrote 
and told me after she got to Wyoming. ” 

‘ ^ It was too bad, old feller. ’ ’ 

‘‘ Wasn’t it hell! I was so sore when she 
wrote, the way she ’d believed that little sawed- 
off snorter with rock dust in his hair, I never 
answered that letter for a long time. Well, I 
got another letter from her about a year after 
that. She was still in the same place, doin’ 
well. Her name was Nettie Morrison.” 

‘‘ Maybe it is yet, Taterleg.” 

Maybe. I’ve been a-thinkin’ I’d go out 
there and look her up, and if she ain ’t married, 
me and her we might let bygones he bygones and 
hitch. I could open a oyster parlor out there 
on the dough I’ve saved up ; I’d dish ’em up and 
she’d wait on the table and take in the money. 
We’d do well, Duke.” 

‘‘ I het you would.” 


76 


FEET UPON THE ROAD 


I got the last letter she wrote — I’ll let you 
see it, Duke.” 

T ate r leg made a rummaging in the chuck 
wagon, coming out presently with the letter. 
He stood contemplating it with tender eye. 
Some writer, ain’t she, Duke? ” 

‘‘ She sure is a fine writer, Taterleg — writes 
like a schoolma ’am. ” 

^ ‘ She can talk like one, too. See — ‘ Lander, 
Wyo.’ It’s a little town about as big as my 
hat, from the looks of it on the map, standin’ 
away otf up there alone. I could go to it with 
my eyes shut, straight as a bee. ’ ’ 

Why don’t you write to her, Taterleg? ” 
The Duke could scarcely keep back a smile, so 
diverting he found this affair of the Welshman, 
the waitress, and the cook. More comedy than 
romance, he thought, Taterleg on one side of 
the fence, that girl on the other. 

‘‘ I’ve been a-squarin’ off to write,” Taterleg 
replied, ‘‘ but I don’t seem to git the time.” He 
opened his vest to put the letter away close to 
his heart, it seemed, that it might remind him 
of his intention and square him quite around to 
the task. But there was no pocket on the side 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


covering his heart. Taterleg put the letter next 
his lung as the nearest approach to that senti- 
mental portion of his anatomy, and sighed long 
and loud as he buttoned his garment. 

“You said you^d put off goin’ till mornin’, 
Duke? 

“ Sure I will.’^ 

“ I’ll throw my things in a sack and be ready 
to hit the breeze with you after breakfast. I 
can write back to the boss for my time. ’ ’ 

Morning found them on the road together, the 
sun at their backs. Taterleg was as brilliant 
as a hmnming-bird, even to his belt and scab- 
bard, which had a great many silver tacks 
driven into them, repeating the letters LW in 
great characters and small. He said the letters 
were the initials of his name. 

“ Lawrence? ” the Duke ventured to inquire. 

Taterleg looked round him with great caution 
before answering, although they were at least 
fifteen miles from camp, and farther than that 
from the next human habitation. He lowered 
his voice, rubbing his hand reflectively along 
the glittering ornaments of his belt. 

78 


FEET UPON THE ROAD 


Lovelace,’^ he said. 

“ Not a bad name.’’ 

“ It ain’t no name for a cook,” Taterleg said, 
almost vindictively. “ You’re the first man I 
ever told it to, and I’ll ask you not to pass it 
on. I used to go by the name of Larry before 
they called me Taterleg. I got that name out 
here in the Bad Lands ; it suits me, all right. ’ ’ 
“ It’s a queer kind of a name to call a man 
by. How did they come to give it to you ? ’ ’ 

‘‘ Well, sir, I give myself that name, you 
might say, when you come to figger it down to 
cases. I was breakin ’ a horse when I first come 
out here four years ago, headin’ at that time for 
Wyoming. He thro wed me. When I didn ’t hop 
him ag’in, the boys come over to see if I was 
busted. When they asked me if I was hurt, I 
says, ‘ He snapped my dern old leg like a 
’tater.’ And from that day on they called me 
Taterleg. Yes, and I guess I’d ’a’ been in 
Wyoming now, maybe with a oyster parlor and 
a wife, if it hadn’t been for that blame horse.” 
He paused reminiscently ; then he said : 

‘‘ Where was you aimin’ to camp tonight, 
Duke! ” 


79 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


“ Wliere does the flier stop after it passes 
Misery, going west? ’’ 

It stops for water at Glendora, about fifty 
or fifty-five miles west, sometimes. Vve heard 
^em say if a feller buys a ticket for there in 
Chicago, it’ll let him olf. But I don’t guess 
it stops there regular. Why, Duke? W^as you 
aimin’ to take the flier there? ” 

No. We’ll stop there tonight, then, if your 
horse can make it.” 

‘ ^ Make it ! If he can ’t I ’U eat him raw. He ’s 
made seventy-five many a time before today.” 

So they fared on that first day, in friendly 
converse. At sunset they drew up on a mesa, 
high above the treeless, broken country through 
which they had been riding all day, and saw 
Glendora in the valley below them. 

There she is,” said Taterleg. ‘‘ I wonder 
what we’re goin’ to run into down there? ” 


80 


CHAPTER VI 

ALLUREMENTS OF GLENDORA 

I N A bend of tli6 Little Missouri, where it 
broadened out and took on the appearance 
of a consequential stream, Glendora lay, a 
lonely little village with a gray hill behind it. 

There was but half a street in Glendora, like 
a setting for a stage, the railroad in the fore- 
ground, the little sun-baked station crouching 
by it, lonely as the winds which sung by night 
in the telegraph wires crossing its roof. Here 
the trains went by with a roar, leaving behind 
them a cloud of gray dust like a curtain to hide 
from the eyes of those who strained from their 
windows to see the little that remained of Glen- 
dora, once a place of more consequence than 
today. 

Only enough remained of the town to live by 
its trade. There was enough flour in the store, 
enough whisky in the saloon ; enough stamps in 
the post office, enough beds in the hotel, to sat- 
81 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


isfy with comfort the demands of the far- 
stretching population of the country contiguous 
thereto. But if there had risen an extraordi- 
nary occasion bringing a demand without notice 
for a thousand pounds more of flour, a barrel 
more of whisky, a hundred more stamps or five 
extra beds, Glendora would have fallen under 
the burden and collapsed in disgrace. 

Close by the station there were cattle pens 
for loading stock, with two long tracks for hold- 
ing the cars. In autumn fat cattle were driven 
down out of the hidden valleys to entrain there 
for market. In those days there was merri- 
ment after nightfaU in Glendora. At other 
times it was mainly a quiet place, the shooting 
that was done on its one-sided street being of 
a peaceful nature in the way of expressing a 
feeling for which some plain-witted, drunken 
cowherder had no words. 

A good many years before the day that the 
Duke and Taterleg came riding into Glendora, 
the town had supported more than one store 
and saloon. The shells of these dead enter- 
prises stood there still, windows and doors 
boarded up, as if their owners had stopped 
82 


ALLUREMENTS OP GLENDORA 


their mouths when they went away to prevent 
a whisper of the secrets they might tell of the 
old riotous nights, or of fallen hopes, or dishon- 
est transactions. So they stood now in their 
melancholy, backs against the gray hill, giving 
to Glendora the appearance of a town that was 
more than half dead, and soon must fail and 
pass utterly away in the gray-blowing clouds of 
dust. 

The hotel seemed the brightest and soundest 
living spot in the place, for it was painted in 
green, like a watermelon, with a cottonwood 
tree growing beside the pump at the porch cor- 
ner. In yellow letters upon the windowpane of 
the office there appeared the proprietor’s name, 
doubtless the work of some wandering artist 
who had paid the price of his lodging or his 
dinner so. 

OESON WOOD, PROP. 

said the sign, bedded in curlicues and twisted 
ornaments, as if a carpenter had planed the let- 
ters out of a board, leaving the shavings where 
they fell. A green rustic bench stood across 
one end of the long porch, such as is seen in 
83 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


boarding-houses frequented by railroad men, 
and chairs with whittled and notched arms be- 
fore the office door, near the pump. 

Into this atmosphere there had come, many 
years before, one of those innocents among men 
whose misfortune it is to fall before the beguile- 
ments of the dishonest ; that sort of man whom 
the promoters of schemes go out to catch in the 
manner of an old maid trapping flies in a cup 
of suds. Milton Philbrook was this man. Some- 
body had sold him forty thousand acres of land 
in a body for three dollars an acre. It began 
at the river and ran back to the hills for a mat- 
ter of twenty miles. 

Philbrook bought the land on the showing 
that it was rich in coal deposits. Which was 
true enough. But he was not geologist enough 
to know that it was only lignite, and not a coal 
of commercial value in those times. This truth 
he came to later, together with the knowledge 
that his land was worth, at the most extrava- 
gant valuation, not more than fifty cents an 
acre. 

Finding no market for his brown coal, Phil- 
brook decided to adopt the customs of the coun- 
84 


ALLUREMENTS OF GLENDORA 


try and turn cattleman. A little inquiry into 
that business convinced him that the expenses 
of growing the cattle and the long distance 
from market absorbed a great bulk of the 
profits needlessly. He set about with the orig- 
inal plan, therefore, of fencing his forty thou- 
sand acres with wire, thus erasing at one bold 
stroke the cost of hiring men to guard his herds. 

A fence in the Bad Lands was unknown out- 
side a corral in those days. When carloads 
of barbed wire and posts began to arrive at 
Glendora men came riding in for miles to satisfy 
themselves that the rumors were founded ; when 
Philbrook hired men to build the fence, and 
operations were begun, murmurs and threats 
against the unwelcome innovation were heard. 
Philbrook pushed the work to conclusion, un- 
mindful of the threats, moved now by the inten- 
tion of founding a great, baronial estate in that 
bleak land. His further plan of profit and con- 
sequence was to establish a packing-house at 
Glendora, where his herds could be slaughtered 
and dressed and shipped neat to market, at 
once assuring him a double profit and reduced 
expense. But that was one phase of his dream 
85 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


that never hardened into the reality of machin- 
ery and bricks. 

While the long lines of fence were going up, 
carpenters were at work building a fit seat for 
Philbrook^s baronial aims. The point he chose 
for his home site was the top of a bare plateau 
overlooking the river, the face of it gray, crum- 
bling shale, rising three hundred feet in abrupt 
slope from the water ^s edge. At great labor 
and expense Philbrook built a road between 
Glendora and this place, and carried water in 
pipes from the river to irrigate the grass, trees, 
shrubs and blooming plants alien to that coun- 
try which he planted to break the bleakness of 
it and make a setting for his costly home. 

Here on this jutting shoulder of the cold, un- 
friendly upland, a house rose which was the 
wonder of all who beheld it as they rode the 
wild distances and viewed it from afar. It 
seemed a mansion to them, its walls gleaming 
white, its roof green as the hope in its build- 
er’s breast. It was a large house, and seemed 
larger for its prominence against the sky, built 
in the shape of a T, with wide porches in the 
angles. And to this place, upon which he had 
86 


ALLUREMENTS OF GLENDORA 

lavished what remained of his fortune, Phil- 
brook brought his wife and little daughter, as 
strange to their surroundings as the delicate 
flowers which pined and drooped in that un- 
friendly soil. 

Immediately upon completion of his fences he 
had imported well-bred cattle and set them 
grazing within his confines. He set men to rid- 
ing by night and day a patrol of his long lines 
of wire, rifles under their thighs, with orders to 
shoot anybody found cutting the fences in ac- 
cordance with the many threats to serve them 
so. Contentions and feuds began, and battles 
and bloody encounters, which did not cease 
through many a turbulent year. Philbrook 
lived in the saddle, for he was a man of high 
courage and unbending determination, leaving 
his wife and child in the suspense and solitude 
of their grand home in which they found no 
pleasure. 

The trees and shrubs which Philbrook had 
planted with such care and attended with such 
hope, withered on the bleak plateau and died, 
in spite of the water from the river; the delicate 
grass with which he sought to beautify and 
87 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


clothe the harsh gray soil sickened and pined 
away; the shrubs made a short battle against 
the bleakness of winter, putting out pale, 
strange flowers like the wan smile of a woman 
who stands on the threshold of death, then 
failed away, and died. Mrs. Philbrook broke 
under the long strain of never-ending battles, 
and died the spring that her daughter came 
eighteen years of age. 

This girl had grown up in the saddle, a true 
daughter of her fighting sire. Time and again 
she had led a patrol of two fence-riders along 
one side of that sixty square miles of ranch 
while her father guarded the other. She could 
handle firearms with speed and accuracy equal 
to any man on the range, where she had been 
bearing a man’s burden since her early girlhood. 

All this information pertaining to the history 
of Milton Philbrook and his adventures in the 
Bad Lands, Orson Wood, the one-armed land- 
lord at the hotel in Glendora told Lambert on 
the evening of the travelers ’ arrival there. The 
story had come as the result of questions con- 
cerning the great white house on the mesa, the 
two men sitting on the porch in plain view of it, 
88 


ALLUREMENTS OF GLENDORA 


Taterleg entertaining the daughter of the hotel 
across the show case in the office. 

Lambert found the story more interesting 
than anything he ever had imagined of the Bad 
Lands. Here was romance looking down on him 
from the lonely walls of that white house, and 
heroism of a finer kind than these people appre- 
ciated, he was sure. 

Is the girl still here? ’’ he inquired. 

‘‘ Yes, she’s back now. She’s been away to 
school in Boston for three or four years, cornin’ 
back in summer for a little while. ’ ’ 

‘‘ When did she come back! ” 

Lambert felt that his v6ice was thick as he in- 
quired, disturbed by the eager beating of his 
heart. Who knows! and perhaps, and all the 
rest of it came galloping to him with a roar of 
blood in his ears like the sound of a thousand 
hoofs. The landlord called over his shoulder 
to his daughter: 

^‘Alta, when did Vesta Philbrook come 
back! ” 

“ Four or five weeks ago,” said Alta, with 
the sound of chewing gum. 

Four or five weeks ago,” the landlord re- 
89 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


peated, as though Alta spoke a foreign tongue 
and must be translated. 

I see,’’ said Lambert, vaguely, shaking to 
the tips of his fingers with a kind of buck ague 
that he never had suffered from before. He was 
afraid the landlord would notice it, and slewed 
his chair, getting out his tobacco to cover the 
fool spell. 

For that was she, Vesta Philbrook was she, 
and she was Vesta Philbrook. He knew it as 
well as he knew that he could, count ten. Some- 
thing had led him there that day; the force that 
was shaping the course of their two lives to 
cross again had held him back when he had con- 
sidered selling his horse and going West a long 
distance on the train. He grew calmer when he 
had his cigarette alight. The landlord was talk- 
ing again. 

‘‘ Funny thing about Vesta cornin’ home, 
too,” he said, and stopped a little, as if to con- 
sider the humor of it. Lambert looked at him 
with a sudden wrench of the neck. 

Which? ” 

“ Philbrook ’s luck held out, it looked like, till 
she got through her education. All through the 
90 


ALLUREMENTS OF GLENDORA 


fights he had and the scrapes he run into the 
last ten years he never got a scratch. Bullets 
used to hum around that man like bees, and he’d 
ride through ’em like they was bees, but none of 
’em ever notched him. Curious, wasn’t it? ” 

‘‘ Did somebody get him at last? ” 

No, he took typhoid fever. He took down 
about a week or ten days after Vesta got home. 
He died about a couple of week ago. Vesta had 
him laid beside her mother up there on the hill. 
He said they ’d never run him out of this coun- 
try, livin’ or dead.” 

Lambert swallowed a dry lump. 

‘ ‘ Is she running the ranch ? ’ ’ 

Like an old soldier, sir. I tell you, I’ve 
got a whole lot of admiration for that girl.” 

‘‘ She must have her hands full.” 

Night and day. She’s short on fence-rid- 
ers, and I guess if you boys are lookin’ for a job 
you can land up there with Vesta, all right.” 

Taterleg and the girl came out and sat on 
the green rustic bench at the farther end of the 
porch. It complained under them; there was 
talk and low giggling. 

We didn’t expect to strike anything this 
91 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


soon,’’ Lambert said, his active mind leaping 
ahead to shape new romance like a magician. 

You don’t look like the kind of boys that’d 
shy from a job if it jumped out in the road 
ahead of you.” 

“I’d hate for folks to think we would.” 

“Ain’t you the feller they call: the Duke of 
Chimney Butte*? ” 

“ They call me that in this country.” 

“ Yes ; I knew that horse the minute you rode 
up, though he’s changed for the better wonder- 
ful since I saw him last, and I knew you from 
the descriptions I’ve heard of you. Vesta ’d give 
you a job in a minute, and she’d pay you good 
money, too. I wouldn’t wonder if she didn’t put 
you in as foreman right on the jump, account of 
the name you’ve got up here in the Bad Lands. ’ ’ 

“Not much to my credit in the name, I’m 
afraid,” said Lambert, almost sadly. “ Do 
they still cut her fences and run off her stock? ” 

“ Yes; rustlin’s got to be stylish around here 
ag’in, after we thought we had all them gangs 
rounded up and sent to the pen. I guess some 
of their time must be up and they’re cornin’ 
home.” 


92 


ALLUREMENTS OP GLENDORA 


It’s pretty tough for a single-handed girl.” 

Yes, it is tough. Them fellers are more 
than likely some of the old crowd Philbrook 
used to fight and round up and send over the 
road. He killed off four or five of them, and the 
rest of them swore they’d salt him when they’d 
done their time. Well, he’s gone. But they’re 
not above fightin’ a girl.” 

It’s a tough job for a woman,” said Lam- 
bert, looking thoughtfully toward the white 
house on the mesa. 

‘‘Ain’t it, though? ” 

Lambert thought about it a while, or ap- 
peared to be thinking about it, sitting with bent 
head, smoking silently, looking now and then 
toward the ranchhouse, the lights of which could 
be seen. Alta came across the porch presently, 
Taterleg attending her like a courtier. She dis- 
missed him at the door with an excuse of de- 
ferred duties within. He joined his thoughtful 
partner. 

“ Better go up and see her in the morning,” 
suggested Wood, the landlord. 

“ I think I will, thank you.” 

Wood went in to sell a cowboy a cigar; the 
93 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


partners started out to have a look at Glendora 
by moonlight. A little way they walked in 
silence, the light of the barber-shop falling 
across the road ahead of them. 

‘‘ See who in the morning, Duke? ’’ Taterleg 
inquired. 

‘ ‘ Lady in the white house on the mesa. Her 
father died a few weeks ago, and left her alone 
with a big ranch on her hands. Rustlers are 

runnin’ her cattle off, cuttin’ her fences ’’ 

Fences? ” 

Yes, forty thousand acres all fenced in, 
like Texas.’’ 

‘‘ You don’t tell me? ” 

“ Needs men. Wood says. I thought may- 
be ” 

The Duke didn’t finish it ; just left it swinging 
that way, expecting Taterleg to read the rest. 

“ Sure,” said Taterleg, taking it right along. 

I wouldn’t mind stayin’ around here a while. 
Glendora’s a nice little place; nicer place than 
I thought it was. ’ ’ 

The Duke said nothing. But as they went on 
toward the harber-shop he grinned. 


94 


CHAPTER VII 

THE HOMELIEST MAN 

T hat brilliant beam falling through the 
barber open door and uncurtmned win- 
dow came from^ new lighting device, procured 
from a Chicago mail-order house. It was a 
gasoline lamp that burned with a gas mantle, 
swinging from the ceiling, flooding the little 
shop with a greenish light. 

It gave a ghastly hue of death to the human 
face, but it would light up the creases and 
wrinkles of the most weathered neck that came 
under the barber ^s blade. That was the main 
consideration, for most of the barber’s work 
was done by night, that trade — or profession, 
as those who pursue it unfailingly hold it to be 
— being a side line in connection with his duties 
as station agent. He was a progressive citizen, 
and no grass grew under his feet, no hair under 
his hand. 

At the moment that the Duke and Taterleg 
95 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


entered the barber’s far-reaching beam, some 
buck of the range was stretched in the chair. 
The customer was a man of considerable length 
and many angles, a shorn appearance about his 
face, especially his big, bony nose, that seemed 
to tell of a mustache sacrificed in the operation 
just then drawing to a close. 

Taterleg stopped short at sight of the long 
legs drawn up like a sharp gabl,e to get all of 
them into the chair, the immense nose raking 
the ceiling like a double-barreled cannon, the 
morgue-tinted light giving him the complexion 
of a man ready for his shroud. He touched 
Lambert’s arm to check him and call his atten- 
tion. 

‘ ‘ Look in there — look at that feller, Duke I 
There he is; there’s the man I’ve been lookin’ 
for ever since I was old enough to vote. I 
didn’t believe there was any such a feller; but 
there he is! ” 

‘‘ What feller? Who is he? ” 

“ The feller that’s uglier than me. Dang his 
melts, there he is ! I’m going to ask him for his 
picture, so I’ll have the proof to show.” 

Taterleg was at an unaccountable pitch of 
96 


THE HOMELIEST MAN 


spirits. Adventure had taken hold of him like 
liquor. He made a start for the door as if to 
carry out his expressed intention in all earnest^ 
ness. Lambert stopped him. 

“ He might not see the joke, Taterleg.^’ 

‘‘ He couldn’t refuse a man a friendly turn 
like that, Duke. Look at him! What’s that 
feller rubbin’ on him, do you reckon? ” 
Ointment of some kind, I guess.” 

Taterleg stood with his bow legs so wide apart 
that a barrel could have been pitched between 
them, watching the operation within the shop 
with the greatest enjoyment. 

‘ ‘ Goose grease, with pre-fume in it that cuts 
your breath. Look at that feller shut his eyes 
and stretch his demed old neck! Just like a 
calf when you rub him under the chin. Look at 
him — did you ever see anything to match it ! ” 
Come on — let the man alone.” 

‘^Wrinkle remover, beauty restorer,” said 
Taterleg, not moving forward an inch upon his 
way. While he seemed to be struck with ad- 
miration for the process of renovation, there 
was an unmistakable jeer in his tone which the 
barber resented by a fierce look. 

97 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


‘‘ You’re goin’ to get into trouble if you don’t 
shut up, ’ ’ Lambert cautioned. 

‘‘ Look at him shut his old eyes and stretch 
his neck ! Ain’t it the sweetest ” 

The man in the chair lifted himself in sud- 
den grimness, sat up from between the barber’s 
massaging hands, which still held their pose like 
some sort of brace, turned a threatening look 
into the road. If half his face was sufficient to 
raise the declaration from Taterleg that the 
man was uglier than he, all of it surely pro- 
claimed him the homeliest man in the nation. 
His eyes were red, as from some long carousal, 
their lids heavy and slow, his neck was long, 
and inflamed like an old gobbler’s when he in- 
flates himself with his impotent rage. 

He looked hard at the two men, so sour in his 
wrath, so comical in his unmatched ugliness, 
that Lambert could not restrain a most unusual 
and generous grin. Taterleg bared his head, 
bowing low, not a smile, not a ripple of a smile, 
on his face. 

“ Mister, I take off my hat to you,” he said. 

“ Yes, and I’ll take your fool head off the 
first time I meet you! ” the man returned. He 
98 


THE HOMELIEST MAN 


let himself back into the barber waiting hands, 
a growl deep in him, surly as an old dog that 
has been roused out of his place in the mi ddle 
of the road. 

‘‘ General, I wouldn’t hurt you for a purty, I 
wouldn’t change your looks for a dollar bill,” 
said Taterleg. 

‘‘Wait till I git out of this chair! ” the cus- 
tomer threatened, voice smothered in the bar- 
ber’s hands. 

‘ ‘ I guess he ’s not a dangerous man — lucky 
for you,” said Lambert. He drew Taterfeg 
away ; they went on. 

The allurements of Glendora were no more 
dazzling by night than by day. There was not 
much business in the saloon, there being few 
visitors in town, no roistering, no sounds of 
uncurbed gaiety. Formerly there had been a 
dance-hall in connection with the saloon, but 
that branch of the business had failed through 
lack of patronage long ago. The bar stood in 
the front of the long, cheerless room, a patch 
of light over and around it, the melancholy fur- 
niture of its prosperous days dim in the gloom 
beyond. 


99 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Lambert and Taterleg bad a few drinks to 
show their respect for the institutions of the 
country, and went back to the hotel. Somebody 
had taken Taterleg ’s place beside Alta on the 
green bench. It was a man who spoke with 
rumbling voice like the sound of an empty wag- 
on on a rocky road. Lambert recognized the 
intonation at once. 

‘‘ It looks to me like there’s trouble ahead 
for you, Mr. Wilson,” he said. 

I’ll take that feller by the handle on his 
face and bust him ag’in’ a tree like a gourd,” 
Taterleg said, not in boasting manner, but in 
the even and untroubled way of a man stating 
a fact. 

‘ ‘ If there was any tree. ’ ’ 

I’ll slam him ag’in’ a rock; I’ll bust him 
like a oyster.” 

I think we’d better go to bed without a 
fight, if we can. ’ ’ 

‘‘I’m willin’; but I’m not goin’ around by 
the back door to miss that feller.” 

They came up the, porch into the light that 
fell weakly from the office down the steps. 
There was a movement of feet beside the green 
100 


THE HOMELIEST MAN 


bench, an exclamation, a swift advance on the 
part of the big-nosed man who had afforded 
amusement for Taterleg in the barber’s chair. 

You little bench-leggid fiste, if you’ve got 
gall enough to say one word to a man’s face, 
say it ! ” he challenged. 

Alta came after him, quickly, with pacific in- 
tent. She was a tall girl, not very well filled 
out, like an immature bean pod. Her heavy 
black hair was cut in a waterfall of bangs 
which came down to her eyebrows, the rest of 
it done up behind in loops like sausages, and 
fastened with a large, red ribbon. She had put 
off her apron, and stood forth in white, her 
sleeves much shorter than the arms which 
reached out of them, rings on her fingers which 
looked as if they would leave their shadows be- 
hind. 

“ Now, Mr. Jedlick, I don’t want you to go 
raisin’ no fuss around here with the guests,” 
she said. 

Jedlick! ” repeated Taterleg, turning to 
Lambert with a pained, depressed look on his 
face. ‘‘ It sounds like something you blow in to 
make a noise.” 


101 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


The barber’s customer was a taller man 
standing than he was long lying. There wasn’t 
much clearance between his head and the ceil- 
ing of the porch. He stood before Taterleg 
glowing, his hat off, his short-cut hair glistening 
with pomatum, showing his teeth like a vicious 
horse. 

‘‘You look like you was cut out with a can- 
opener,” he sneered. 

“ Maybe I was, and I’ve got rough edges on 
me, ’ ’ Taterleg returned, looking up at him with 
calculative eye. 

“ Now, Mr. Jedlick ” — a hand on his arm, 
but confident of the force of it, like a lady ani- 
mal trainer in a cage of lions — “ you come on 
over here and set down and leave that gentle- 
man alone.” 

“ If anybody but you’d ’a’ said it, Alta, I’d 
’a’ told him he was a liar,” Jedlick growled. 
He moved his foot to go with her, stopped, 
snarled at Taterleg again. ‘ ‘ I used to roll ’em 
in flour and swaller ’em with the feathers on, ’ ’ 
said he. 

“ You’re a terrible rough feller, ain’t you? ” 
Taterleg inquired with cutting sarcasm. 

102 


THE HOMELIEST MAN 


Alta led Jedlick off to his corner; Taterleg 
and Lambert entered the hotel office. 

“ Gee, but this is a windy night! ’’ said the 
Duke, holding his hat on with both hands. 

I’ll let some of the wind out of him if he 
monkeys with me! ” 

‘ ‘ Looks to me like I know another feller that 
an operation wouldn’t hurt,” the Duke re- 
marked, turning a sly eye on his friend. 

The landlord appeared with a lamp to light 
them to their beds, putting an end to these ex- 
changes of threat and banter. As he was leav- 
ing them to their double-barreled apartment, 
Lambert remarked: 

That man Jedlick ’s an interesting-lookin’ 
feller.” 

“ Ben Jedlick? Yes, Ben’s a case; he’s quite 
a case.” 

‘‘ What business does he f oiler? ” 

‘‘ Ben? Ben’s cook on Pat Sullivan’s ranch 
up the river ; one of the best camp cooks in the 
Bad Lands, and I guess the best known, without 
any doubt. ’ ’ 

Taterleg sat down on the side of his bed as if 
he had been punctured, indeed, lopping forward 
103 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


in mock attitude of utter collapse as the land- 
lord closed the door. 

‘ ‘ Cook ! That settles it for me ; I Ve turned 
the last flapjack ITl ever turn for any man but 
myself. ’ ’ 

How will you manage the oyster parlor? ” 

Well, Vve just about give up that notion, 
Duke. I Ve been thinkin’ Ifll stick to the range 
and go in the sheep business.’’ 

I expect it would be a good move, old fel- 
ler.” 

They’re goin’ into it around here, they tell 
me.” 

‘‘Alta tells you.” 

“ Oh, you git out! But I’m a cowman right 
now, and I’m goin’ to stay one for some little 
time to come. It don’t take much intelligence 
in a man to ride fence.” 

“ No; I guess we could both pass on that.” 

The Duke blew the lamp out with his hat. 
There was silence, all but the scuffing sound of 
disrobing. Taterleg spoke out of bed. 

“ That girl’s got purty eyes, ain’t she? ” 

“ Lovely eyes, Taterleg.” 

“And purty hair, too. Makes a feller want 
104 


THE HOMELIEST MAN 


to lean over and pat that little row of bangs. * * 
I expect there a feller down there doin^ 
it now. ’ ’ 

The spring complained under Taterleg’s sud- 
den movement; there was a sound of swishing 
legs under the sheet. Lambert saw him dimly 
against the window, sitting with his feet on the 
floor. 

‘‘You mean Jedlick? 

“ Why not Jedlick? He^s got the field to 
himself. ’ ^ 

Taterleg sat a little while thinking about it. 
Presently he resumed his repose, chuckling a 
choppy little laugh. 

“ Jedlick! Jedlick ainT got no more show 
than a cow. When a lady steps in and takes a 
man’s part there’s only one answer, Duke. And 
she called me a gentleman, too. Didn ’t you hear 
her call me a gentleman, Duke! ” 

“ I seem to remember that somebody else 
called you that one time. ’ ’ 

Taterleg hadn’t any reply at once. Lambert 
lay there grinning in the dark. No matter how 
sincere Taterleg might have been in this or any 
other affair, to the Duke it was only a joke. 

105 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


That is the attitude of most men toward the 
tender vagaries of others. No romance ever is 
serious but one^s own. 

Well, that happened a good while ago,’’ 
said Taterleg defensively. 

But memories didn’t trouble him much that 
night. Very soon he was sleeping, snoring on 
the G string with unsparing pressure. For 
Lambert there was no sleep. He lay in a fever 
of anticipation. Tomorrow he should see her, 
his quest ended almost as soon as begun. 

There was not one stick of fuel for the flame 
of this conjecture, not one reasonable justifica- 
tion for his more than hope. Only something 
had flashed to him that the girl in the house on 
the mesa was she whom his soul sought, whose 
handkerchief was folded in his pocketbook and 
carried with his money. He would take no 
counsel from reason, no denial from fate. 

He lay awake seeing visions when he should 
have been asleep in the midst of legitimate 
dreams. A score of plans for serving her came 
up for examination, a hundred hopes for a 
happy culmination of this green romance 
budded, bloomed, and fell. But above the race 
106 


THE HOMELIEST MAN 


of his hot thoughts the certainty persisted that 
this girl was the lady of the beckoning hand. 

He had no desire to escape from these fevered 
fancies in sleep, as his companion had put down 
his homely ambitions. Long he lay awake turn- 
ing them to view from every hopeful, alluring 
angle, hearing the small noises of the town’s 
small activities die away to silence and peace. 

In the morning he should ride to see her, his 
quest happily ended, indeed, even on the thresh- 
old of its beginning. 


107 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE HOUSE ON THE MESA 

E ven more bleak than from a distance the 
house on the mesa appeared as the riders 
approached it up the winding road. It stood 
solitary on its desert promontory, the bright 
sky behind it, not a shrub to ease its lines, not 
a barn or shed to make a rude background for 
its amazing proportions. Native grass grew 
sparsely on the great table where it stood ; rains 
had guttered the soil near its door. There was 
about it the air of an abandoned place, its long, 
gaunt porches open to wind and storm. 

As they drew nearer the house the scene 
opened in a more domestic appearance. Be- 
yond it in a little cup of the mesa the stable, cat- 
tle sheds, and quarters for the men were lo- 
cated, so hidden in their shelter that they could 
not be seen from any point in the valley below. 
To the world that never scaled these crumbling 
heights, Philbrook’s mansion appeared as if it 
108 


THE HOUSE ON THE MESA 


endured independent of those vulgar append- 
ages indeed. 

Looks like they Ve got the bam where the 
house ought to be,’’ said Taterleg. ‘‘ I’ll bet 
the wind takes the hide off of a feller up here in 
the wintertime. ’ ’ 

It’s about as bleak a place for a house as 
a man could pick,” Lambert agreed. He 
checked his horse a moment to look round on 
the vast sweep of country presented to view 
from the height, the river lying as bright as 
quicksilver in the dun land. 

‘ ^ Not even a wire fence to break it ! ” Tater- 
leg drew his shoulders up and shivered in the 
hot morning sun as he contemplated the un- 
trammeled roadway of the northern winds. 

Well, sir, it looks to me like a cyclone carried 
that house from somewheres and slammed it 
down. No man in his right senses ever built it 
there.” 

People take queer freaks sometimes, even 
in their senses. I guess we can ride right 
around to the door.” 

But for the wide, weathered porch they could 
have ridden up to it and knocked on its panels 
109 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


from the saddle. Taterleg was for going to the 
kitchen door, a suggestion which the Duke 
scorned. He didn^t want to meet that girl at 
a kitchen door, even her own kitchen door. For 
that he was about to meet her, there was no 
doubt in him that moment. 

He was not in a state of trembling eagerness, 
hut of calm expectation, as a man might be jus- 
tified in who had made his preparations and felt 
the outcome sure. He even smiled as he pic- 
tured her surprise, like a man returning home 
unexpectedly, but to a welcome of which he held 
no doubt. 

Taterleg remained mounted while Lambert 
went to the door. It was a rather inhospitable 
appearing door of solid oak, heavy and dark. 
There was a narrow pane of beveled glass set 
into it near the top, beneath it a knocker that 
must have been hammered by a hand in some 
far land centuries before the house on the mesa 
was planned. 

A negro woman, rheumatic, old, came to the 
door. Miss Philbrook was at the barn, she said. 
What did they want of her? Were they look- 
ing for work? To these questions Lambert 
110 


THE HOUSE ON THE MESA 


made no reply. As he turned back to his horse 
the old serving woman came to the porch, leav- 
ing the door swinging wide, giving a view into 
the hall, which was furnished with a profusion 
and luxuriance that Taterleg never had seen be- 
fore. 

The old woman watched the Duke keenly as 
he swung into the saddle in the suppleness of 
his youthful grace. She shaded her eyes 
against the sun, looking after him still as he 
rode with his companion toward the barn. 

Chickens were making the barnyard lots com- 
fortable with their noise, some dairy cows of a 
breed alien to that range waited in a lot to be 
turned out to the day’s grazing; a burro put its 
big-eared head round the comer of a shed, ey- 
ing the strangers with the alert curiosity of a 
nino of his native land. But the lady of the 
ranch was not in sight nor sound. 

Lambert drew up at the gate cutting the em- 
ployees ’ quarters from the barnyard, and sat 
looking things over. Here was a peace and se- 
curity, an atmosphere of contentment and com- 
fort, entirely lacking in the surroundings of the 
house. The buildings were all of far better 
111 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


class than were to be found on the ranches 
of that country ; even the bunkhouse a house, in 
fact, and not a shed-roofed shack. 

I wonder where she’s at? ” said Taterleg, 
leaning and peering. I don’t see her around 
here nowheres.” 

I’ll go down to the bunkhouse and see if 
there’s anybody around,” Lambert said, for he 
had a notion, somehow, that he ought to meet 
her on foot. 

Taterleg remained at the gate, because he 
looked better on a horse than olf, and he was 
not wanting in that vain streak which any man 
with a backbone and marrow in him possesses. 
He wanted to appear at his best when the boss 
of that high-class outfit laid her eyes on him for 
the first time; and if he had hopes that she 
might succumb to his charms, they were no 
more extravagant than most men’s are under 
similar conditions. 

Off to one side of a long bam Lambert saw 
her as he opened the gate. She was trying to 
coax a young calf to drink out of a bucket that 
an old negro held under its nose. Perhaps his 
heart climbed a little, and his eyes grew hot 
112 


THE HOUSE ON THE MESA 


with a sudden surge of blood, after the way of 
youth, as he went forward. 

He could not see her face fully, for she was 
bending over the calf, and the broad brim of her 
hat interposed. She looked up at the sound of 
his approach, a startled expression in her frank, 
gray eyes. Handsome, in truth, she was, in her 
riding habit of brown duck, her heavy som- 
brero, her strong, high boots. Her hair was the 
color of old honeycomb, her face browned by 
sun and wind. 

She was a maid to gladden a man’s heart, 
with the morning sun upon her, the strength of 
her great courage in her clear eyes ; a girl of 
breeding, as one could see by her proud car- 
riage. 

But she was not the girl whose handkerchief 
he had won in his reckless race with the train ! 


I 


113 


CHAPTEE IX 


A KNIGHT-EEBANT 


HE Duke took off his hat, standing before 



X her foolishly dumb between his disap- 
pointment and embarrassment. He had counted 
so fully on finding the girl of his romance that 
he was reluctant to accept the testimony of his 
eyes. Here was one charming enough to com- 
pensate a man for a hundred fasts and fevers, 
but she was not the lodestone that had drawn 
upon his heart with that impelling force which 
could not be denied. 

What a stupid blunder his impetuous conclu- 
sion had led him into ; what an awkward situa- 
tion! Pretty aa she was, he didn’t want to 
serve this woman, no matter for her embarrass- 
ments and distress. He could not remain there 
a week in the ferment of his longing to be on his 
way, searching the world for her whom his soul 
desired. This ran over him like an electric 
shock as he stood before her, hat in hand, head 


114 


A KNIGHT-ERRANT 


bent a little, like a culprit, looking rather stupid 
in his confusion. 

“ Were you looking for somebody f ’’ she 
asked, her handsome face sunning over with a 
smile that invited his confidence and dismissed 
his qualms. 

‘‘ I was looking for the boss, ma’am.^’ 

“I’m the boss.” She spoke encouriagingly, 
as to some timid creature, bending to brush off 
the milk that the stubborn calf had shaken from 
its muzzle over her skirt. 

‘ ‘ My partner and I are strangers here — he ’s 
over there at the gate — passing through the 
country, and wanted your permission to look 
around the place a little. They told us about it 
down at Glendora. ’ ’ 

The animation of her face was clouded in- 
stantly as by a shadow of disappointment. She 
turned her head as if to hide this from his eyes, 
answering carelessly, a little pettishly : 

“ Go ahead; look around till you’re tired.” 

Lambert hesitated, knowing very well that he 
had raised expectations which he was in no 
present mind to fill. She must be sorely in need 
of help when she would brighten up that way at 
115 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


the mere sight of a common creature like a cow- 
puncher. He hated to take away what he had 
seemed to come there offering, what he had, in 
all earnestness, come to o:ffer. 

But she was not the girl. He had followed 
a false lure that his own unbridled imagination 
had lit. The only thing to do was back out of 
it as gracefully as he could, and the poor excuse 
of ‘ ‘ looking around ’ ’ was the best one he could 
lay his hand to in a hurry. 

‘ ‘ Thank you, ^ ’ said he, rather emptily. 

She did not reply, but bent again to her task 
of teaching the little black calf to take its break- 
fast out of the pail instead of the fashion in 
which nature intended it to refresh itself. Lam- 
bert backed off a little, for the way of the range 
had indeed become his way in that year of his 
apprenticeship, and its crudities were over him 
painfully. When off what he considered a re- 
spectful distance he put on his hat, turning a 
look at her as if to further assure her that his 
invasion of her premises was not a trespass. 

She gave him no further notice, engrossed as 
she appeared to be with the calf, but when he 
reached the gate and looked back, he saw her 
116 


A KNIGHT-ERRANT 


standing straight, the bucket at her feet, looking 
after him as if she resented the fact that two 
free-footed men should come there and flaunt 
their leisure before her in the hour, of her need. 

Taterleg was looking over the gate, trying to 
bring himself into the range of her eyes. He 
swept off his hat when she looked that way, to 
be rewarded by an immediate presentation of 
her back. Such cdw-punchers as these were al- 
together too fine and grand in their independ- 
ent airs, her attitude seemed to say. 

Did you take the job? Taterleg inquired. 

I didnT ask her about it.’^ 

‘‘You didnT ask her? Well, what in the 
name of snakes did you come up here for? ’’ 

The Duke led his horse away from the gate, 
back where she could not see him, and stood fid- 
dling with his cinch a bit, although it required 
no attention at all. 

“ I got to thinkin’ maybe I’d better go on 
west a piece. If you want to stay, don’t let me 
lead you off. Go on over and strike her for a 
job; she needs men, I know, by the way she 
looked.” 

“ No, I guess I’ll go on with you till our roads 
117 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


fork. But I was kind of thinkin ’ I’d like to stay 
around Glendora a while. ’ ’ Taterleg sighed as 
he seemed to relinquish the thought of it, tried 
the ga.te to see that it was latched, turned his 
horse about. ‘‘ Well, where ’re we headin’ for 
now? ” 

I want to ride up there on that bench in 
front of the house and look around a little at the 
view ; then I guess we ’ll go back to town. ’ ’ 
They rode to the top of the bench the Duke 
indicated, where the view broadened in every 
direction, that being the last barrier between 
the river and the distant hills. The ranchhouse 
appeared big even in that setting of immensi- 
ties, and perilously near the edge of the crum- 
bling blutf which presented a face almost sheer 
on the river more than three hundred feet be- 
low. 

It must ’a’ been a job to haul the lumber 
for that house up here.” 

That was Taterleg ’s only comment. The 
rugged grandeur of nature presented to him 
only its obstacles ; its beauties did not move him 
any more than they would have affected a cow. 
The Duke did not seem to hear him. He was 
118 


A KNIGHT-ERRANT 


stretching his gaze into the dim south up the 
river, where leaden hills rolled billow upon bil- 
low, engamitured with their sad gray sage. 
Whatever his thoughts were, they bound him in 
a spell which the creaking of Taterleg^s saddle, 
as he shifted in it impatiently, did not disturb. 

‘‘ Couple of fellers just rode up to the gate 
in the cross-fence back of the hunkhouse,^^ Ta- 
terleg reported. 

The Duke grunted, to let it be known that he 
heard, but was not interested. He was a thou- 
sand miles away from the Bad Lands in his fast- 
running dreams. 

That old nigger seems to be havin’ some 
trouble with them fellers,” came Taterleg’s fur- 
ther report. There goes that girl on her horse 
up to the gate — say, look at ’em, Duke ! Them 
fellers is tryin’ to make her let ’em through.” 

Lambert turned, indifferently, to see. There 
appeared to be a controversy under way at the 
gate, to be sure. But rows between employees 
and employer were common; that wasn’t his 
fuss. Perhaps it wasn’t an argument, as it 
seemed to be from that distance, anyhow. 

Did you see that? ” Taterleg started his 
119 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


horse forward in a jump as he spoke, reining up 
stiffly at Lambert’s side. One of them fellers 
pulled his gun on that old nigger — did you see 
him, Duke? ” 

Ye-es, I saw him,” said the Duke specula- 
tively, watching the squabble at the distant gate 
keenly, turning his horse to head that way by 
a pressure of his knee. 

Knocked him flat! ” Taterleg set off in a 
gallop as he spoke, the Duke tight after him, 
soon ahead of him, old Whetstone a yellow 
streak across the mesa. 

It wasn’t his quarrel, but nobody could come 
flashing a gun in the face of a lady when he was 
around. That was the argument that rose in 
the Duke’s thoughts as he rode down the slope 
and up the fenced passage between the barns. 

The gate at which the two horsemen were dis- 
puting the way with the girl and her old black 
helper was a hundred yards or more beyond 
the one at which Taterleg and the Duke had 
stopped a little while before. It was in a cross- 
fence which appeared to cut the house and other 
buildings from the range beyond. 

As the Duke bent to open this first gate he 
120 


A KNIGHT-ERRANT 


saw that the girl had dismounted and was bend- 
ing over the old negro, who was lying stretched 
on the ground. He had fallen against the gate, 
on which one of the ruffians was now pushing, 
trying to open it against the weight of his body. 
The girl spoke sharply to the fellow, bracing 
her shoulder against the gate. Lambert heard 
the scoundrel laugh as he swung to the ground 
and set his shoulder against the other side. 

The man who remained mounted leaned over 
and added his strength to the struggle, together 
forcing the gate open, pushing the resisting girl 
with it, dragging the old negro, who clutched 
the bottom plank and was hauled brutally along. 
All concerned in the struggle were so deeply 
engrossed in their own affair that none noted 
the approach of the Duke and Taterleg. The 
fellow on the ground was leading his horse 
through as Lambert galloped up. 

At the sound of Lambert ^s approach the dis- 
mounted man leaped into his saddle. The two 
trespassers sat scowling inside the gate,' watch- 
ing him closely for the first hostile sign. Vesta 
Philbrook was trying to help the old negro to 
his feet. Blood was streaming down his face 
121 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


from a cut on his forehead ; he sank down again 
when she let go of him to welcome this unex- 
pected help. 

These men cut my fence; they^re trespass- 
ing on me, trying to defy and humiliate me be- 
cause they know I’m alone! ” she said. She 
stretched out her hand toward Lambert as if in 
appeal to a judge, her face flushed from the 
struggle and sense of outrage, her hat pushed 
hack on her amber hair, the fire of righteous an- 
ger in her eyes. The realization of her beauty 
seemed to sweep Lambert like a flood of sudden 
music, lifting his heart in a great surge, making 
him recklessly glad. 

Where do you fellers think you’re goin’? ” 
he asked, following the speech of the range. 

‘‘We’re goin’ where we started to go,” the 
man who had just remounted replied, glaring 
at Lambert mth insulting sneer. 

This was a stocky man with bushy red-gray 
eyebrows, a stubble of roan beard over his 
blunt, common face. One foot was short in his 
boot, as if he had lost his toes in a blizzard, a 
mark not uncommonly set by unfriendly nature 
on the men who defied its force in that country. 

122 


A KNIGHT-ERRANT 


He wore a duck shooting- jacket, the pockets of 
it bulging as if with game. 

His companion was a much younger man, 
slender, graceful in the saddle, rather hand- 
some in a swarthy, defiant way. He ranged up 
beside the spokesman as if to take full share in 
whatever was to come. Both of them were 
armed with revolvers, the elder of the two with 
a rifle in addition, which he carried in a leather 
scabbard black and slick with age, slung on his 
saddle under his thigh. 

‘‘ You ^11 have to get permission from this 
lady before you go through here,’’ Lambert told 
him calmly. 

Vesta Philbrook had stepped back, as if she 
had presented her case and waited adjudica- 
tion. She stood by the old negro where he sat 
in the dust, her hand on his head, not a word 
more to add to her case, seeming to have passed 
it on to this slim, confident, soft-spoken stranger 
with his clear eyes and steady hand, who took 
hold of it so competently. 

I’ve been cuttin’ this purty little fence for 
ten years, and I’ll keep on cuttin’ it and goin’ 
through whenever I feel like it. I don’t have to 
123 


THE DUKE OF CEIIMNEY BUTTJ^ 


git no woman’s permission, and no man’s, nei- 
ther, to go where I want to go, kid. ’ ’ 

The man dropped his hand to his revolver as 
he spoke the last word with a twisting of the 
lip, a showing of his scorbutic teeth, a sneer 
that was at once an insult and a goad. The next 
moment he was straining his arms above his 
head as if trying to pull them out of their, sock- 
ets, and his companion was displaying himself 
in like manner, Lambert’s gun down on them, 
Taterleg coming in deliberately a second or two 
behind. 

‘ Keep them right there, ’ ’ was the Duke ’s 
caution, jerking his head to Taterleg in the 
manner of a signal understood. 

Taterleg rode up to the fence-cutters and dis- 
armed them, holding his gun comfortably in 
their ribs as he worked with swift hand. The 
rifle he handed down to the old negro, who was 
now on his feet, and who took it with a bow and 
a grave face across which a gleam of satisfac- 
tion flashed. The holsters with the revolvers in 
them he passed to the Duke, who hung them on 
his saddle-hom. 

‘‘ Pile oif,” Taterleg ordered. 

124 


A KNIGHT-ERRANT 


They obeyed, wrathful but impotent. Tater- 
leg sat by, chewing gum, calm and steady as if 
the thing had been rehearsed a hundred times. 
The Duke pointed to the old negro ’s hat. 

Pick it up,’’ he ordered the younger man; 
‘ ‘ dust it olf and give it to him. ’ ’ 

The fellow did as directed, with evil face, for 
it hurt his high pride, just as the Duke intended 
that it should hurt. Lambert nodded to the man 
who had knocked the old fellow down with a 
blow of his heavy revolver. 

Dust off his clothes,” he said. 

Vesta Philbrook smiled as she witnessed this 
swift humbling of her ancient enemy. The old 
negro turned himself arrogantly, presenting 
the rear of his broad and dusty pantaloons ; but 
the bristling, red-faced rancher balked. He 
looked up at Lambert, half choked on the bone 
of his rage. 

I’ll die before I’ll do it! ” he declared with 
a curse. 

Lambert beat down the defiant, red-balled 
glowering eyes with one brief, straight look. 
The fence-cutter broke a tip of sage and set to 
work, the old man lifting his arms like a strut- 
125 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


ting gobbler, his head held high, the pain of his 
hurt forgotten in the triumphant moment of his 
revenge. 

Have you got some wire and tools around 
here handy. Miss Philbrook? Lambert in- 
quired. “ These men are going to do a little 
fence fixin’ this morning for a change.’’ 

The old negro pranced off to get the required 
tools, throwing a look back at the two prisoners 
now and then, covering his mouth with his hand 
to keep back the explosion of his mirth. Badly 
as he was hurt, his enjoyment of this unprece- 
dented situation seemed to cure him completely. 
His mistress went after him, doubtful of his 
strength, with nothing but a quick look into 
Lambert’s eyes as she passed to tell him how 
deeply she felt. 

It was a remarkable procession for the Bad 
Lands that set out from the cross-line fence a 
few minutes later, the two free rangers starting 
under escort to repair the damage done to a de- 
spised fence-man’s barrier. One of them car- 
ried a wire-stretcher, the chain of it wound 
round his saddle-horn, the other a coil of barbed 
wire and such tools as were required. After 
126 


A KNIGHT-ERRANT 


they had proceeded a little way, Taterleg 
thought of something. 

‘‘ Don’t you reckon we might need a couple 
of posts, Duke? ” he asked. 

The Duke thought perhaps they might come 
in handy. They turned back, accordingly, and 
each of the trespassers was compelled to shoul- 
der an oak post, with much blasphemy and 
threatening of future adjustment. In that man- 
ner of marching, each free ranger carrying his 
cross as none of his kind ever had carried it 
before, they rode to the scene of their late dep- 
redations. 

Vesta Philbrook stood at the gate and 
watched them go, reproaching herself for her 
silence in the presence of this man who had 
come to her assistance with such sure and de- 
termined hand. She never had found it diffi- 
cult before to thank anybody who had done her 
a generous turn; but here her tongue had lain 
as still as a hare in its covert, and her heart had 
gone trembling in the gratitude which it could 
not voice. 

A strong man he was, and full of command- 
ing courage, but neither so strong nor so mighty 
127 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


that she had need to keep as quiet in his pres- 
ence as a kitchen maid before a king. But he 
would have to pass that way coming back, and 
she could make amends. The old negro stood 
by, chuckling his pleasure at the sight drawing 
away into the distance of the pasture where his 
mistress’ cattle fed. 

‘‘Ananias, do you know who that man is,” 
she asked. 

“ Laws, Miss Vesta, co’se I do. Didn’t you 
hear his hoss-wrangler call him Duke ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I heard him call him Duke. ’ ’ 

“ He’s that man they call Duke of Chimley 
Butte — I know that boss he’s a-ridin’; that 
boss used to be Jim Wilder’s ole outlaw. That 
Duke man killed Jim and took that boss away 
from him ; that ’s what he done. That was while 
you was gone; you didn’t hear ’bout it.” 

“ Killed him and took his horse? Surely, he 
must have had some good reason, Ananias.” 

“ I don’ know, and I ain’t a-carin’. That’s 
him, and that’s what he done.” 

“ Did you ever hear of him killing anybody 
else? ” 

“ Oh, plenty, plenty,” said the old man with 
128 


A KNIGHT-ERRANT 


easy generosity. “ I bet he’s killed a hun’ed 
men — maybe mo’n a hun’ed.” 

But you don’t know,” she said, smiling at 
the old man’s extravagant recommendation of 
his hero. 

I don’ know, but I bet he is,” said he. 
‘ ‘ Look at ’em ! ” he chuckled ; ‘ ‘ look at old Nick 
Ha’gus and his onery, low-down Injun-blood 
boy! ” 


129 


CHAPTEE X 

GUESTS OF THE BOSS LADY 



ESTA rode out to meet them as they were 


V coming back, to make sure of her thanks. 
She was radiant with gratitude, and at no loss 
any longer for words to express it. Before they 
had ridden together on the return journey half 
a mile, Taterleg felt that he had known her all 
her life, and was ready to cast his fortunes 
with her, win or lose. 

Lambert was leaving the conversation be- 
tween her and Taterleg, for the greater part. 
He rode in gloomy isolation, like a man with 
something on his mind, speaking only when 
spoken to, and then as shortly as politeness 
would permit. Taterleg, who had words enough 
for a book, appeared to feel the responsibility 
of holding them up to the level of gentlemen and 
citizens of the world. Not if talk could pre- 
vent it would Taterleg allow them to be classed 
as a pair of boors who could not go beyond the 


130 


GUESTS OF THE BOSS LADY 


ordinary cow-puncher range in word and 
thought. 

‘‘ It’ll be some time, ma’am, before that fel- 
ler Hargus and his boy’ll try to make a short 
cut to Glendora through your ranch ag’in,” 
said he. 

‘ ‘ It was the first time they were ever caught, 
after old man Hargus had been cutting our 
fence for years, Mr. Wilson. I can’t tell you 
how much I owe you for humiliating them where 
they thought the humiliation would be on my 
side.” 

Don’t you mention it, ma’am; it’s the 
greatest pleasure in the world.” 

He thought he’d come by the house and 
look in the window and defy me because I was 
alone. ’ ’ 

“He’s got a mean eye; he’s got a eye like 
a wolf.” 

“He’s got a wolf’s habits, too, in more ways 
than one, Mr. Wilson.” 

“ Yes, that man’d steal calves, all right.” 

“ We’ve never been able to prove it on him, 
Mr. Wilson, but you’ve put your finger on Mr. 
Hargus’ weakness like a phrenologist.” 

131 


THE DUKE OF ClIIiMNEY BUTTE 


Taterleg felt his oats at this compliment. He 
sat up like a major, his chest out, his mustache 
as big on his thin face as a Mameluke ’s. It al- 
ways made Lambert think of the handlebars on 
that long-horn safety bicycle that he came rid- 
ing into the Bad Lands. 

The worst part of it is, Mr. Wilson, that 
he’s not the only one.” 

Neighbors livin’ off of you, are they? Yes, 
that’s the way it was down in Texas when the 
big ranches begun to fence, they tell me — I 
never was there, ma’am, and I don’t know of 
my own knowledge and belief, as the lawyers 
say. Fence-ridin’ down there in them days was 
a job where a man took his life in both hands 
and held it up to be shot at. ’ ’ 

There’s been an endless tight on this ranch, 
too. It’s been a strain and a struggle from the 
first day, not worth it, not worth half of it. But 
father put the best years of his life into it, and 
established it where men boasted it couldn’t be 
done. I ’m not going to let them whip me now. ’ ’ 
Lambert looked at her with a quick gleam of 
admiration in his eyes. She was riding between 
him and Taterleg, as easy in their company, 
132 


GUESTS OF THE BOSS LADY 


and as natural as if she had known them for 
years. There had been no heights of false pride 
or consequence for her to descend to the com- 
radeship of these men, for she was as unaffected 
and ingenuous as they. Lambert seemed to 
wake to a sudden realization of this. His inter- 
est in her began to grow, his reserve to fall 
away. 

They told us at Glendora that rustlers were 
running your cattle otf,’^ said he. “Are they 
taking the stragglers that get through where 
the fence is cut, or coming after them? ’’ 

“ They’re coming in and running them off 
almost under our eyes. I’ve only got one man 
on the ranch beside Ananias; nobody riding 
fence at all but myself. It takes me a good 
while to ride nearly seventy miles of fence.” 

“ Yes, that’s so,” Lambert seemed to reflect. 
“ How many head have you got in this pas- 
ture? ” 

“ I ought to have about four thousand, but 
they ’re melting away like snow, Mr. Lambert. ’ ’ 
“ We saw a bunch of ’em up there where 
them fellers cut the fence,” Taterleg put in, 
not to be left out of the game which he had 
133 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


started and kept going single-handed so long; 

white-faced cattle, like they Ve got in Kan- 
sas. 

Ours — mine are all white-faced. They 
stand this climate better than any other.’’ 

It must have been a hunch of strays we 
saw — none of them was branded,” Lambert 
said. 

Father never would brand his calves, for 
various reasons, the humane above all others. 
I never blamed him after seeing it done once, 
and I’m not going to take up the barbarous 
practice now. All other considerations aside, 
it ruins a hide, you know, Mr. Lambert. ’ ’ 

It seems to me you’d better lose the hide 
than the calf. Miss Philbrook. ’ ’ 

It does make it easy for thieves, and that’s 
the only argument in favor of branding. While 
we’ve — I’ve got the only white-faced herd in 
this country, I can’t go into court and prove my 
property without a brand, once the cattle are 
run outside of this fence. So they come in and 
take them, knowing they’re safe unless they’re 
caught. ’ ’ 

Lambert fell silent again. The ranchhouse 
134 


GUESTS OF THE BOSS LADY 


was in sight, high on its peninsula of prairie, 
like a lighthouse seen from sea. 

^ ‘ It ’s a shame to let that fine herd waste away 
like that, ^ ’ he said, ruminatively, as if speaking 
to himself. 

It’s always been hard to get help here ; cow- 
boys seem to think it’s a disgrace to ride fence. 
Such as we’ve been able to get nearly always 
turned out thieves on their own account in the 
end. The otie out with the cattle now is a farm 
boy from Iowa, afraid of his shadow.” 

They didn’t want no fence in here in the 
first place — that’s what set their teeth ag’in’ 
you,” Taterleg said. 

If I could only get some real men once,” 
she sighed ; ‘ ‘ men who could handle them like 
you boys did this morning. Even father never 
seemed to understand where to take hold of 
them to hurt them, the way you do.” 

They were near the house now. Lambert 
rode on a little way in silence. Then: 

It’s a shame to let that herd go to pieces,” 
he said. 

It’s a sin! ” Taterleg declared. 

She dropped her reins, looking from one to 
135 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


the other, an eager appeal in her hopeful face. 

Why can’t you boys stop here a while and 
help me out? ” she asked, saying at last in a 
burst of hopeful eagerness what had been in her 
heart to say from the first. She held out her 
hand to each of them in a pretty way of appeal, 
turning from one to the other, her gray eyes 
pleading. 

‘‘I hate to see a herd like that broken up by 
thieves, and all of your investment wasted,” 
said the Duke, thoughtfully, as if considering it 
deeply. 

” It’s a sin and a shame! ” said Taterleg. 

I guess we’ll stay and give you a hand,” 
said the Duke. 

She pulled her horse up short, and gave him, 
not a figurative hand, but a warm, a soft and 
material one, from which she pulled her buck- 
skin glove as if to level all thought or sugges- 
tion of a barrier between them. She turned 
then and shook hands with Taterleg, warming 
him so with her glowing eyes that he patted her 
hand a little before he let it go, in manner truly 
patriarchal. 

You’re all right, you’re all right,” he said. 

136 


GUESTS OF THE BOSS LADY 


Once pledged to it, the Duke was anxious to 
set his hand to the work that he saw cut out for 
liim on that big ranch. He was like a physician 
who had entered reluctantly into a case after 
other practitioners had left the patient in des- 
perate condition. Every moment must be em- 
ployed if disaster to that valuable herd was to 
be averted. 

Vesta would hear of nothing but that they 
come first to the house for dinner. So the 
guests did the best they could at improving 
their appearance at the bunkhouse after turn- 
ing their horses over to the obsequious Ananias, 
who appeared with a large bandage, and a 
strong smell of turpentine, on his bruised head. 

Beyond brushing off the dust of the morn- 
ing’s ride there was little to be done. Taterleg 
brought out his brightest necktie from the port- 
able possessions rolled up in his slicker; the^ 
Duke produced his calfskin vest. There was not 
a coat between them to save the dignity of their 
profession at the boss lady’s board. Taterleg ’s 
green-velvet waistcoat had suffered damage 
during the winter when a spark from his pipe 
burned a hole, in it as big as a dollar. He held 
137 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


it up and looked at it, concluding in the end that 
it would not serve. 

With his hairy chaps off, Taterleg did not 
appear so bow-legged, but he waddled like a 
crab as they went toward the house to join the 
companion of their ride. The Duke stopped 
on the high ground near the house, turned, 
looked off over the great pasture that had been 
Philbrook’s battle ground for so many years. 

‘‘ One farmer from Iowa out there to watch 
four thousand cattle, and thieves all around 
him ! Eatin ’ looks like burnin ’ daylight to me. ’ ^ 
She^d ’a’ felt hurt if we’d ’a’ shied off from 
her dinner, Duke. You know a man’s got to 
eat when he ain’t hungry and drink when he 
ain’t dry sometimes in this world to keep up 
appearances. ’ ’ 

‘‘Appearances ! ” The Duke looked him over 
with humorous eye, from his somewhat clean 
sombrero to his capacious corduroy trousers 
gathered into his boot tops. ‘ ‘ Oh, well, I guess 
it’s all right.” 

Vesta was in excellent spirits, due to the 
broadening of her prospects, which had ap- 
peared so narrow and unpromising but a few 
138 


GUESTS OP THE BOSS LADY 


hours before. One of this pair, she believed, 
was worth three ordinary men. She asked them 
about their adventures, and the Duke solemnly 
assured her that they never had experienced any. 

Taterleg, loquacious as he might be on occa- 
sion, knew when to hold his tongue. Lambert 
led her away from that ground into a discussion 
of her own affairs, and conditions as they stood 
between her neighbors and herself. 

Nick Hargus is one of the most persistent 
offenders, and we might as well dispose of him 
first, since you Ve met the old wretch and know 
what he’s like on the outside,” she explained. 

Hargus was in the cattle business in a hand- 
to-mouth way when we came here, and he raised 
a bigger noise than anybody else about our 
fences, claiming we’d cut him off from water, 
which wasn’t true. We didn’t cut anybody off 
from the river. 

‘‘ Hargus is married to an Indian squaw, a 
little old squat, black-faced thing as mean as a 
snake. They’ve got a big brood of children, 
that boy you saw this morning is the senior of 
' the gang. Old Hargus usually harbors two or 
three cattle thieves, horse thieves or other 
189 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


crooks of that kind, some of them just out of the 
pen, some preparing their way to it. He does 
a sort of general rustling business, with this 
ranch as his main source of supply. WeVe had 
a standing fight on with him ever since we came 
here, but today was the first time, as I told you, 
that he ever was caught. 

You heard what he said about cutting the 
fence this morning. That’s the attitude of the 
country all around. You couldn’t convict a man 
for cutting a fence in this country. So all a 
person can do is shoot them if you catch them at 
it. I don’t know what Hargus will do to get 
even with this morning’s humiliation.” 

I think he’ll leave that fence alone like it 
was charged with lightnin’,” Taterleg said. 

He’ll try to turn something; he’s wily and 
vindictive. ’ ’ 

He needs a chunk of lead about the middle 
of his appetite, ’ ’ Taterleg declared. 

‘ ^ Who comes next ? ’ ’ Lambert inquired. 

“ There’s a man they call Walleye Bostian — 
his regular name is Jesse — on the farther end 
of this place that’s troubled with a case of in- 
curable resentment against a barbed- wire fence. 

140 


GUESTS OP THE BOSS LADY 


He a sheepman, one of the last that would do 
a lawless deed, you’d think, from the look of 
him, but he ’s mean to the roots of his hair. ’ ’ 

‘‘All sheepmen’s onery, ma’am, they tell 
me,” said Taterleg, a cowman now from core to 
rind, and loyal to his calling accordingly. 

“ I don’t know about the rest of them, but 
Walleye Bostian is a mighty mean sheepman. 
Well, I know I got a shot at him once that he’ll 
remember. ’ ’ 

You did? ” Taterleg ’s face was as bright 
as a dishpan with admiration. He chuckled in 
his throat, eying the Duke slantingly to see how 
he took that piece of news. 

The Duke sat up a little sti:ffer, his face grew 
a shade more serious, and that was all the 
change in him that Taterleg could see. 

“ I hope we can take that kind of work off 
your hands in the future. Miss Philbrook,” he 
said, his voice slow and grave. 

She lifted her grateful eyes with a look of 
appreciation that seemed to him overpayment 
for a service proposed, rather than done. She 
went on, then, with a description of her inter- 
esting neighbors. 


141 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


This ranch is a long, narrow strip, only 
about three miles wide by twenty deep, the river 
at this end of it. Walleye Bostian at the other. 
Along the sides there are various kinds of rep- 
tiles in human skin, none of them living within 
four or five miles of our fences, the average 
being much farther than that, for people are 
'not very plentiful right around here. 

* ‘ On the north of us Hargus is the worst, on 
the south a man named Kerr. Kerr is the big- 
gest single-handed cattleman around here. His 
one grievance against us is that we shut a creek 
that he formerly used along inside our fences 
that forced him to range down to the river for 
water. As the creek begins and ends on our 
land — it empties into the river about a mile 
above here — it’s hard for an unbiased mind to 
grasp Kerr’s point of objection.” 

Have you ever taken a shot at him? ” the 
Duke asked, smiling a little dry smile. 

No-o,” said she reflectively, not at Kerr 
himself. Kerr is what is usually termed a 
gentleman ; that is, he ’s a man of education and 
wears his beard cut like a banker’s, but his 
methods of carrying on a feud are extremely 


GUESTS OF THE BOSS LADY 


low. Fighting is beneath his dignity, I guess j 
he hires it done.’' 

You’ve seen some fightin’ in your time, 
ma’am,” Taterleg said. 

Too much of it,” she sighed wearily. 
I’ve had a shot at his men more than once, but 
there are one or two in that Kerr family I’d like 
to sling a gun down on ! ” 

It was strange to hear that gentle-mannered, 
refined girl talk of fighting as if it were the com- 
monest of everyday business. There was no 
note of boasting, no color of exaggeration in 
her manner. She was as natural and sincere as 
the calm breeze, coming in through the open 
window, and as wholesome and pure. There 
was not a doubt of that in the mind of either 
of the men at the table with her. Their admira- 
tion spoke out of their eyes. 

“ When you’ve had to fight all your life,” she 
said, looking up earnestly into Lambert’s face, 
it makes you old before your time, and quick- 
tempered and savage, I suppose, even when you 
fight in self-defense. I used to ride fence when 
I was fourteen, with a rifle across my saddle, 
and I wouldn’t have thought any more of shoot- 
143 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


ing a man I saw cutting our fence or running 
off our cattle than I would a rabbit/' 

She did not say wbat her state of mind on 
that question was at present, hut it was so 
plainly expressed in her flushed cheeks and 
defiant eyes that it needed no words. 

“If you'd 'a' had your gun on you this 
morning when them fellers knocked that old 
coon down I bet there 'd 'a ' been a funeral due 
over at old Hargus’ ranch," sai4 Taterleg. 

“I'd saddled up to go to the post office; I 
never carry a gun with me when I go to Glen- 
dora," she said. 

“A country where a lady has to carry a gun 
at all ain't no country to speak of. It needs 
cleanin' up, ma'am, that's what it needs." 

“ It surely does, Mr. Wilson: you've got it 
sized up just right." 

“ Well, Taterleg, I guess we'd better be hit- 
tin' the breeze," the Duke suggested, plainly 
uneasy between the duty of courtesy and the 
long lines of unguarded fence. 

Taterleg could not accustom himself to that 
extraordinary bunkhouse when they returned 
to it, on such short time He walked about in 
144 


GUESTS OP THE BOSS LADY 


it, necktie in his hand, looking into its wonders, 
marveling over its conveniences. 

‘‘ It^s just like a regular human house, 
said he. 

There was a bureau with a glass to it in every 
room, and there were rooms for several men. 
The Duke and Taterleg stowed away their 
slender belongings in the drawers and soon 
were ready for the saddle. As he put the calf- 
skin vest away, the Duke took out the little 
handkerchief, from which the perfume of faint 
violet had faded long ago, and pressed it ten- 
derly against his cheek. 

‘‘ You ^11 wait on me a little while longer, 
won’t you? ” he asked. 

Then he laid it away between the folds of his 
remarkable garment very carefully, and went 
out, his slicker across his arm, to take up his life 
in that strip of contention and strife between 
Vesta Philbrook’s far-reaching wire fences. 


145 


CHAPTER XI 


ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS 

HE news quickly ran over the country that 



i Vesta Philbrook had hired the notorious 
Duke of Chimney Butte and his gun-slinging 
side partner to ride fence. What had happened 
to Nick Hargus and his boy, Tom, seemed to 
prove that they were men of the old school, 
quite a different type from any who had been 
employed on that ranch previously. 

Lambert was troubled to learn that his noto- 
riety had run ahead of him, increasing as it 
spread. It was said that his encounter with Jim 
Wilder was only one of his milder exploits ; that 
he was a grim and bloody man from Oklahoma 
who had marked his miles with tombstones as he 
traveled. 

His first business on taking charge of the 
Philbrook ranch had been to do a piece of fence- 
cutting on his own account opposite Nick Har- 
gus’ ranch, through which he had ridden and 


146 


ALAEMS AND EXCURSIONS 


driven home thirty head of cattle lately stolen 
by that enterprising citizen from Vesta Phil- 
hrook’s herd. This act of open-handed restora- 
tion, carried out in broad daylight alone, and 
in the face of Hargus, his large family of sons, 
and the skulking refugees from the law who 
chanced to he hiding there at the time, added 
greatly to the Duke^s fame. 

It did not serve as a recommendation among 
the neighbors who had preyed so long and no- 
toriously on the Philbrook herd, and no doubt 
nothing would have been said about it by Har- 
gus to even the most intimate of his ruffianly 
associates. But Taterleg and old Ananias took 
great pains to spread the story in Glendora, 
where it passed along, with additions as it 
moved. Hargus explained that the cattle were 
strays which had broken out. 

While this reputation of the Duke was highly 
gratifying to Taterleg, who found his own glory 
increased thereby, it was extremely distasteful 
to Lambert, who had no means of preventing its 
spread or opportunity of correcting its falsity. 
He knew himself to be an inoffensive, rather 
backward and timid man, or at least this was 
147 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


his own measure of himself. That fight with 
Jim Wilder always had been a cloud over his 
spirits, although his conscience was clear. It 
had sobered him and made him feel old, as 
Vesta Philbrook had said fighting made a per- 
son feel. He could understand her better, per- 
haps, than one whom violence had passed un- 
disturbed. 

There was nothing farther from his desire 
than strife and turmoil, gun-slinging and a fear- 
ful notoriety. But there he was, set up against 
his will, against his record, as a man to whom 
it was wise to give the road. That was a dan- 
gerous distinction, as he well understood, for 
a time would come, even opportunities would be 
created, when he would be called upon to defend 
it. That was the discomfort of a fighting name. 
It was a continual liability, bound sooner or 
later to draw upon a man to the full extent of 
his resources. 

This reputation lost nothing in the result of 
his first meeting with Berry Kerr, the rancher 
who wore his beard like a banker and passed for 
a gentleman in that country, where a gentleman 
was defined, at that time, as a man who didn ’t 
148 


ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS 


swear. This meeting took place on the south 
line of the fence on a day when Lambert had 
been on the ranch a little more than a week. 

Kerr was out looking for strays, he said, al- 
though he seemed to overlook the joke that he 
made in neglecting to state from whose herd. 
Lambert gave him the benefit of the doubt and 
construed him to mean his own. He rode up 
to the fence, affable as a man who never had an 
evil intention in his life, and made inquiry con- 
cerning Lambert’s connection with the ranch, 
making a pretense of not having heard that 
Vesta had hired new men. 

‘‘ Well, she needs a couple of good men that 
will stand by her steady, ’ ’ he said, with all the 
generosity of one who had her interests close 
to his heart. She’s a good girl, and she’s 
been havin ’ a hard time of it. But if you want 
to do her the biggest favor that a man ever did 
do under circumstances of similar nature, per- 
suade her to tear this fence out, all around, and 
throw the range open like it used to be. Then 
all this fool quarreling and shooting will stop, 
and everybody in here will be on good terms 
again. That’s the best way out of it for her, 
149 


THE DUKE OP CEIIMNEY BUTTE 


and it will be the best way out of it for you if 
you intend to stay here and run this ranch.’’ 

While Kerr’s manner seemed to be pa- 
triarchal and kindly advisory, there was a cer- 
tain hardness beneath his words, a certain 
coldness in his eyes which made his proposal 
nothing short of a threat. It made all the re- 
sentful indignation which Lambert had mas- 
tered and chained down in himself rise up and 
bristle. He took it as a personal affront, as a 
threat against his own safety, and the answer 
that he gave to it was quick and to the point. 

‘‘ There’ll never be a yard of this fence torn 
down on my advice, Mr. Kerr,” he said. ‘‘ You 
people around here will have to learn to give it 
a good deal more respect from now on than you 
have in the past. I’m going to teach this crowd 
around here to take off their hats when they 
come to a fence.” 

Kerr was a slender, dry man, the native 
meanness of his crafty face largely masked by 
his beard, which was beginning to show streaks 
of gray in its brown. He was wearing a coat 
that day, although it was hot, and had no 
weapon in sight. He sat looking Lambert 
150 


ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS 


straight in the eyes for a moment upon the de- 
livery of this bill of intentions, his brows drawn 
a bit, a cast of concentrated hardness in his 
gray-blue eyes. 

“ I^m afraid you’ve bit off more than you 
can chew, much less swallow, young man,” he 
said. With that he rode away, knowing that he 
had failed in what he probably had some hope 
of accomplishing in his sly and unworthy way. 

Things went along quietly after that for a few 
weeks. Hargus did not attempt any retaliatory 
move ; on the side of Kerr ’s ranch all was quiet. 
The Iowa boy, under Taterleg’s tutelage, was 
developing into a trustworthy and capable 
hand, the cattle were fattening in the grassy 
valleys. All counted, it was the most peaceful 
spell that Philbrook’s ranch ever had known, 
and the tranquility was reflected in the owner, 
and her house, and all within its walls. 

Lambert did not see much of Vesta in those 
first weeks of his employment, for he lived 
afield, close beside the fences which he guarded 
as his own honor. Taterleg had a great pride in 
the matter also. He cruised up and down his 
section with a long-range rifle across his saddle, 
151 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


putting in more hours sometimes, he said, than 
there were in a day. Taterleg knew very well 
that slinking eyes were watching him from the 
covert of the sage-gray hills. Unceasing vigi- 
lance was the price of reputation in that place, 
and Taterleg was jealous of his. 

Lambert was beginning to grow restless 
under the urge of his spirit to continue his 
journey westward in quest of the girl who 
had left her favor in his hand. The romance 
of it, the improbability of ever finding her along 
the thousand miles between him and the sea, 
among the multitudes of women in the cities 
and hamlets along the way, appealed to him 
with a compelling lure. 

He had considered many schemes for getting 
trace of her, among the most favored being that 
^ of finding the brakeman who stood on the end 
of the train that day among those who watched 
him ride and overtake it, and learning from him 
to what point her ticket read. That was the 
simplest plan. But he knew that conductors 
and brakemen changed every few hundred 
miles, and that this plan might not lead to Any- 
thing in the end. But it was too simple to put 
152 


ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS 


by without trying; when he set out again this 
would be his first care. 

He smiled sometimes as he rode his lonely 
beat inside the fence and recalled the thrill that 
had animated him with the certainty that Vesta 
Philbrook would turn out to be the girl, his girl. 
The disappointment had been so keen that he 
had almost disliked Vesta that first day. She 
was a fine girl, modest and unaifected, honest 
as the middle of the day, but there was no ap- 
peal but the appeal of the weak to the strong 
from her to him. They were drawn into a com- 
mon sympathy of determination ; he had paused 
there to help her because she was outmatched, 
fighting a brave battle against unscrupulous 
forces. He was taking pay from her, and there 
could not be admitted any thought of romance 
under such conditions. 

But the girl whose challenge he had accepted 
at Misery that day was to be considered in a 
different light. There was a pledge between 
them, a bond. He believed that she was expect- 
ing him out there somewhere, waiting for him 
to come. Often he would halt on a hilltop and 
look away into the west, playing with a thou- 
153 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


sand fancies as to whom she might be, and 
where. 

He was riding in one of these dreams one 
mid-afternoon of a hot day about six weeks after 
taking charge of affairs on the ranch, thinking 
that he would tell Vesta in a day or two that he 
must go. Taterleg might stay with her, other 
men could be hired if she would look about her. 
He wanted to get out of the business anyway; 
there was no offering for a man in it without 
capital. So he was thinking, his head bent, as 
he rode up a long slope of grassy hill. At the 
top he stopped to blow old Whetstone a little, 
turning in the saddle, running his eyes casually 
along the fence. 

He started, his dreams gone from him like a 
covey of frightened quail. The fence was cut. 
For a hundred yards or more along the hilltop 
it was cut at every post, making it impossible to 
piece. 

Lambert could not have felt his resentment 
burn any hotter if it had been his own fence. 
It was a fence under his charge; the defiance 
was directed at him. He rode along to see if 
any cattle had escaped, and drew his breath 
154 


ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS 


again with relief when he found that none had 
passed. 

There was the track of but one horse; the 
fence-cutter had been alone, probably not more 
than an hour ahead of him. The job finished, he 
had gone boldly in the direction of Kerris 
ranch, on whose side the depredation had been 
committed. Lambert followed the trail some 
distance. It led on toward Kerr’s ranch, de- 
fiance in its very boldness. Kerr himself must 
have done that job. 

One man had little chance of stopping such 
assaults, now they had begun, on a front of 
twenty miles. But Lambert vowed that if he 
ever did have the good fortune to come up on . 
one of these sneaks while he was at work, he ’d 
fill his hide so full of lead they’d have to get a 
derrick to load him into a wagon. 

It didn’t matter so much about the fence, so 
long as they didn’t get any of the stock. But 
stragglers from the main herd would find a big 
gap like that in a few hours, and the rustlers 
lying in wait would hurry them away. One such 
loss as that and he would be a disgraced man in 
the eyes of Vesta Philbrook, and the laughing- 
155 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


stock of the rascals who put it through. He 
rode in search of the Iowa boy who was with the 
cattle, his job being to ride among them con- 
tinually to keep them accustomed to a man on 
horseback. Luckily he found him before sun- 
down and sent him for wire. Then he stood 
guard at the cut until the damage was repaired. 

After that fence-cutting became a regular 
prank on Kerris side of the ranch. Watch as 
he might, Lambert cpuld not prevent the 
stealthy excursions, the vindictive destruction 
of the hated barrier. All these breaches were 
made within a mile on either side of the first 
cut, sometimes in a single place, again along a 
stretch, as if the person using the nippers knew 
when to deliberate and when to hasten. 

Always there was the trace of but one rider, 
who never dismounted to cut even the bottom 
wire. That it was the work of the same person 
each time Lambert was convinced, for he always 
rode the same horse, as betrayed by a broken 
hind hoof. 

Lambert tried various expedients for trap- 
ping this skulker during a period of two weeks. 
He lay in wait by day and made stealthy excur^ 
156 


ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS 


sions by night, all to no avail. Whoever was 
doing it had some way of keeping informed on 
his movements with exasperating closeness. 

The matter of discovering and punishing the 
culprit devolved on Lambert alone. He could 
not withdraw Taterleg to help him; the other 
man could not be spared from the cattle. And 
now came the crowning insult of all. 

It was early morning, after an all-night watch 
along the three miles of fence where the wire- 
cutter always worked, when Lambert rode to 
the top of the ridge where the first breach in his 
line had been made. Below that point, not more 
than half a mile, he had stopped to boil his 
breakfast cotfee. His first discovery on mount- 
ing the ridge was a panel of fence cut, his next a 
piece of white paper twisted to the end of one 
of the curling wires. 

This he disengaged and unfolded. It was a 
page torn from a medicine memorandum book 
such as cow-punchers usually carry their time 
in, and the addresses of friends. 

Why don*i you come and get me, Mr. Duke? 

This was the message it bore. 

157 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


The writing was better, the spelling more 
exact than the output of the ordinary cow- 
puncher. Kerr himself, Lambert thought again. 
He stood with the taunting message in his ^fin- 
gers, looking toward the Kerr ranchhouse, some 
seven or eight miles to the south, and stood so 
quite a while, his eyes drawn small as if he 
looked into the wind. 

‘‘All right; Idl take you up on that,’^ he 
said. 

He rode slowly out through the gap, follow- 
ing the fresh trail. As before, it was made by 
the horse with the notch in its left hind hoof. 
It led to a hill three-quarters of a mile beyond 
the fence. From this point it struck a line for 
the distant ranchhouse. 

Lambert did not go beyond the hill. Dis- 
mounting, he stood surveying the country about 
him, struck for the first time by the view that 
this vantage-point a:fforded of the domain under 
his care. Especially the line of fence was 
plainly marked for a long distance on either 
side of the little ridge where the last cut had 
been made. Evidently the skulker concealed 
himself at this very point and watched his open- 
158 


ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS 


ing, playing entirely safe. That accounted for 
all the cutting having been done by daylight, as 
he was sure had been the case. 

He looked about for trace of where the fellow 
had lain behind the fringe of sage, but the 
ground was so hard that it would not take a 
human footprint. As he looked he formulated 
a plan of his own. Half a mile or more beyond 
this hill, in the direction of the Kerr place, a 
small butte stood, its steep sides grassless, its 
flat top bare. That would be his watchtower 
from that day forward until he had his hand on 
this defiant rascal who had time, in his security, 
to stop and write a note. 

That night he scaled the little butte after 
mending the fence behind him, leaving his horse 
concealed among the huge blocks of rock at its 
foot. Next day, and the one following, he 
passed in the blazing sun, but nobody came to 
cut the fence. At night he went down, rode his 
horse to water, turned him to graze, and went 
back to his perch among the ants and lizards 
on top of the butte. 

The third day was cloudy and uneventful ; on 
the fourth, a little before nine, just when the 
159 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


sun was squaring off to shrivel him in his skin, 
Lambert saw somebody coming from the direc- 
tion of Kerris ranch. 

The rider made straight for the hill below 
Lambert ^s butte, where he reined up before 
reaching the top, dismounted and went crawling 
to the fringe of sage at the farther rim of the 
bare summit. Lambert waited until the fellow 
mounted and rode toward the fence, then he slid 
down the shale, starting Whetstone from his 
doze. 

Lambert calculated that he was more than a 
mile from the fence. He wanted to get over 
there near enough to catch the fellow at work, 
so there would be full justification for what he 
intended to do. 

Whetstone stretched himself to the task, com- 
ing out of the broken ground and up the hill 
from which the fence-cutter had ridden but a 
few minutes before while the marauder was still 
a considerable distance from his objective. The 
man was riding slowly, as if saving his horse 
for a chance surprise. 

Lambert cut down the distance between them 
rapidly, and was not more than three hundred 
160 


ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS 


yards behind when the fellow began snipping 
the wire with a pair of nippers that glittered in 
the sun. 

Lambert held his horse back, approaching 
with little noise. The fence-cutter was rising 
back to the saddle after cutting the bottom wire 
of the second panel when he saw that he was 
trapped. 

Plainly unnerved by this coup of the despised 
fence-guard, he sat clutching his reins as if cal- 
culating his chance of dashing past the man who 
blocked his retreat. Lambert slowed down, not 
more than fifty yards between them, waiting for 
the first move toward a gun. He wanted as 
much of the law on his side, even though there 
was no witness to it, as he could have, for the 
sake of his conscience and his peace. 

Just a moment the fence-cutter hesitated, 
making no movement to pull a gun, then he 
seemed to decide in a flash that he could not 
escape the way that he had come. He leaned 
low over his horse ^s neck, as if he expected 
Lambert to begin shooting, rode through the 
gap that he had cut in the fence, and galloped 
swiftly into the pasture. 

161 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Lambert followed, sensing the scheme at a 
glance. The rascal intended to either ride 
across the pasture, hoping to outrun his pur- 
suer in the three miles of up-and-down country, 
or turn when he had a safe lead and go back. 
As the chase led away, it became plain that the 
plan was to make a run for the farther fence, 
cut it and get away before Lambert could come 
up. That arrangement suited Lambert admir- 
ably; it would seem to give him all the law on 
his side that any man could ask. 

There was a scrubby growth of brush on 
the hillsides, and tall red willows along the 
streams, making a covert here and there for 
a horse. The fleeing man took advantage of 
every oifering of this nature, as if he rode in 
constant fear of the bullet that he knew was his 
due. Added to this cunning, he was well 
mounted, his horse being almost equal in speed 
to Whetstone, it seemed, at the beginning of 
the race. 

Lambert pushed him as hard as he thought 
wise, conserving his horse for the advantage 
that he knew he would have while the fence-cut- 
ter stopped to make himself an outlet. The fel- 
162 


ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS 


low rode hard, unsparing of his quirt, jumping 
his long-legged horse over rocks and across 
ravines. ‘v 

It was in one of these leaps that Lambert saw 
something fall from the saddle holster. He 
found it to be the nippers with which the fence 
had been cut, lying in the bottom of the deep 
arroyo. He rode down and recovered the tool, 
in no hurry now, for he was quite certain that 
the fence-cutter would not have another. He 
would discover his loss when he came to the 
fence, and then, if he was not entirely the cow- 
ard and sneak that his actions seemed to brand 
him, he would have recourse to another tool. 

It did not take them long to finish the three- 
mile race across the pasture, and it turned out 
in the end exactly as Lambert thought it would. 
When the fugitive came within a few rods of the 
fence he put his hand down to the holster for 
his nippers, discovering his loss. Then he 
looked back to see how closely he was pressed, 
which was very close indeed. 

Lambert felt that he did not want to be the 
aggressor, even on his own land, in spite of the 
determination he had reached for such a con- 
163 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


tingency as this. He recalled what Vesta had 
said about the impossibility of securing a con- 
viction for cutting a fence. Surely if a man 
could not be held responsible for this act in the 
courts of the country, it would fare hard with 
one who might kill him in the commission of the 
outrage. Let him draw first, and then 

The fellow rode at the fence as if he intended 
to try to jump it. His horse balked at the bar- 
rier, turned, raced along it, Lambert in close 
pursuit, coming alongside him as he was reach- 
ing to draw his pistol from the holster at his 
saddle bow. And in that instant, as the fleeing 
rider bent tugging at the gun which seemed to 
be strapped in the holster, Lambert saw that it 
was not a man. 

A strand of dark hair had fallen from under 
the white sombrero ; it was dropping lower and 
lower as it uncoiled from its anchorage. Lam- 
bert pressed his horse forward a few feet, 
leaned far over and snatched away the hand 
that struggled to unbuckle the weapon. 

She turned on him, her face scarlet in its 
fury, their horses racing side by side, their stir- 
rups clashing. Distorted as her features were 
164 


ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS 


by anger and scorn at the touch of one so de- 
spised, Lambert felt his heart leap and fall, and 
seem to stand still in his bosom. It was not only 
a girl ; it was his girl, the girl of the beckoning 
hand. 


CHAPTER XII ’ 

THE FURY OF DOVES 

L ambert released her the moment that 
^he made his double discovery, foolishly 
shaken, foolishly hurt, to realize that she had 
been afraid to have him know it was a woman 
he pursued. He caught her rein and checked 
her horse along with his own. 

There ^s no use to run away from me,” he 
said, meaning to quiet her fear. She faced him 
scornfully, seemingly to understand it as a 
boast. 

‘‘You wouldn^t say that to a man, you 
coward! ” 

Again he felt a pang, like a blow from an un- 
grateful hand. She was breathing fast, her 
dark eyes spiteful, defiant, her face eloquent of 
the scorn that her words had only feebly ex- 
pressed. He turned his head, as if considering 
her case and revolving in his mind what punish- 
ment to apply. 


166 


THE FURY OP DOVES 


She was dressed in riding breeches, with 
Mexican goatskin chaps, a heavy gray shirt 
such as was common to cowboys, a costly white 
sombrero, its crown pinched to a peak in the 
Mexican fashion. With the big handkerchief 
on her neck flying as she rode, and the crouching 
posture that she had assumed in the saddle 
every time her pursuer began to close up on 
her in the race just ended, Lambert’s failure to 
identify her sex was not so inexcusable as might 
appear. And he was thinking that she had been 
afraid to have him know she was a girl. 

His discovery had left him dumb, his mind 
confused by a cross-current of emotions. He 
was unable to relate her with the present situ- 
ation, although she was unmistakably before his 
eyes, her disguise ineffectual to change one line 
of her body as he recalled her leaning over the 
railing of the car, her anger unable to efface one 
feature as pictured in his memory. 

What are you going to do about it? ” she 
asked him defiantly, not a hint in her bearing 
of shame for her discovery, or contrition for 
her crime. 

I guess you’d better go home.” 

167 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


He spoke in gentle reproof, as to a child 
caught in some trespass well-nigh unforgivable, 
but to whose otfense he had closed his eyes out 
of considerations which only the forgiving un- 
derstand. He looked her full in the eyes as he 
spoke, the disappointment and pain of his dis- 
covery in his face. The color blanched out of her 
cheeks, she stared at him a moment in waking 
astonishment, her eyes just as he remembered 
them when they drew him on in his perilous 
race after the train. 

Such a flame rose in him that he felt it must 
make him transparent, and lay his deepest sen- 
timents bare before her gaze. So she looked at 
him a moment, eye to eye, the anger gone out of 
her face, the flash of scorn no longer glinting 
in the dark well of her eye. But if she recog- 
nized him she did not speak of it. Almost at 
once she turned away, as from the face of a 
stranger, looking hack over the way that she 
had ridden in such headlong flight. 

He believed she was ashamed to have him 
know she recognized him. It was not for him 
to speak of the straining little act that romance 
had cast them for at their first meeting. Per- 
168 


THE FURY OP DOVES 


haps under happier circumstances she would 
have recalled it, and smiled, and given him her 
hand. Embarrassment must attend her here, no 
matter how well she believed herself to be justi- 
fied in her destructive raids against the fence. 

I’ll have to go back the way I came,” she 
said. 

“ There is no other way.” 

They started back in silence, riding side by 
side. Wonder filled the door of his mind; he 
had only disconnected, fragmentary thoughts, 
upon the current of which there rose continually 
the realization, only half understood, that he 
started out to search the world for this woman, 
and he had found her. 

That he had discovered her in the part of a 
petty, spiteful lawbreaker, dressed in an out- 
landish and unbecoming garb, did not trouble 
him. If he was conscious of it at all, indeed, the 
hurrying turmoil of his thoughts pushed it aside 
like drifted leaves by the way. The wonderful 
thing was that he had found her, and at the end 
of a pursuit so hot it might have been a con- 
tinuation of his first race for the trophy of 
white linen in her hand. 

169 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Presently this fog cleared; he came back to 
the starting-point of it, to the coldness of his 
disappointment. More than once in that chase 
across the pasture his hand had dropped to his 
pistol in the sober intention of shooting the 
fugitive, despised as one lower than a thief. She 
seemed to sound his troubled thoughts, riding 
there by his side like a friend. 

^ ‘ It was our range, and they fenced it I ^ ^ she 
said, with all the feeling of a feudist. 

I understand that Philbrook bought the 
land ; he had a right to fence it. ^ ’ 

He didn’t have any right to buy it; they 
didn’t have any right to sell it to him! This 
was our range ; it was the best range in the coun- 
try. Look at the grass here, and look at it 
outside of that fence. ’ ’ 

I think it’s better here because it’s been 
fenced and grazed lightly so long.” 

Well, they didn’t have any right to fence 

it.” 

“ Cutting it won’t make it any better now.” 

‘‘ I don’t care. I’ll cut it again! If I had my 
way about it I’d drive our cattle in here where 
they’ve got a right to be.” 

170 


THE FURY OF DOVES 


‘ ‘ I don understand the feeling of you peo- 
ple in this country against fences ; I came from 
a place where everybody's got them. But I 
suppose it’s natural, if you could get down to 
the bottom of it.” 

If there’s one thing unnatural, it’s a 
fence,” she said. 

They rode on a little way, saying nothing 
more. Then she : 

I thought the man they call the Duke of 
Chimney Butte was working on this side of the 
ranch? ” 

‘‘ That’s a nickname they gave me over at 
the Syndicate when I first struck this country. 
It doesn ’t mean anything at all. ’ ’ 

. ^ ‘ I thought you were his partner, ’ ’ she said. 

No, I’m the monster himself.” 

She looked at him quickly, very close to smil- 
ing. 

Well, you don’t look so terrible, after all. 
I think a man like you would be ashamed to 
have a woman boss over him.” 

I hadn’t noticed it. Miss Kerr.” 

'' She told you about me,” she charged, with 
resentful stress. 


171 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


‘‘ No/’ 

So they rode on, their thoughts between them, 
a word, a silence, nothing worth while said on 
either side, coming presently to the gap she had 
made in the wire. 

‘‘ I thought you’d hand me over to the 
sheriff,” she told him, between banter and de- 
fiance. 

‘‘ They say you couldn’t get a conviction on 
anything short of cattle stealing in this part 
of the country, and doubtful on that. But I 
wouldn’t give you over to the sheriff. Miss 
Kerr, even if I caught you driving off a cow. ’ ’ 

“ What would you do? ” she asked, her head 
bent, her voice low. 

‘‘I’d try to argue you out of the cow first, 
and then teach you better,” he said, with such 
evident seriousness that she turned her face 
away, he thought to hide a smile. 

She stopped her horse between the dangling 
ends of wire. Her long braid of black hair was 
swinging down her back to her cantle, her hard 
ride having disarranged its cunning deceit be- 
neath her hat until it drooped over her ears 
and blew in loose strands over her dark, wildly 
172 


THE FURY OF DOVES 


piquant face, out of which the hard lines of de- 
fiance had not quite melted. 

She was not as handsome as Vesta Phil- 
brook, he admitted, but there was something 
about her that moved emotions in him which 
slept in the other’s presence. Perhaps it was 
the romance of their first meeting; perhaps it 
was the power of her dark, expressive eyes. 
Certainly Lambert had seen many prettier 
women in his short experience, but none that 
ever made his soul vibrate with such exquisite, 
sweet pain. 

If you owned this ranch, Mr. ” 

Lambert is my name, Miss Kerr.” 

^ ‘ If you owned it, Mr. Lambert, I believe we 
could live in peace, even if you kept the fence. 
But with that girl — it can’t be done.” 

‘ ‘ Here are your nippers. Miss Kerr ; you lost 
them when you jumped that arroyo. W on ’t you 
please leave the fence-cutting to the men of the 
family, if it has to be done, after this? ” 

‘‘We have to use them on the range since 
Philbrook cut us off from water,” she explained, 
“ and hired men don’t take much interest in a 
person’s family quarrels. They’re afraid of 
173 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Vesta PMlbrook, anyhow. She can pick a man 
off a mile with her rifle, they believe, but she 
can ’t. I ’m not afraid of her ; I never was afraid 
of old Philbrook, the old devil. 

Even though she concluded with that spite- 
ful little stab, she gave the explanation as if 
she believed it due Lambert ’s generous leniency 
and courteous behavior. 

‘‘And there being no men of the family who 
will undertake it, and no hired men who can be 
interested, you have to cut the fence yourself, ^ ^ 
he said. 

‘ ‘ I know you think I ought to be ashamed of 
cutting her fence, ’ ^ she said, her head bent, her 
eyes veiled, “ but I^m not.’^ 

“ I expect I’d feel it that way if it was my 
quarrel, too.” 

“Any man like you would. I’ve been where 
they have fences, too, and signs to keep off the 
grass. It’s different here.” 

“ Can’t we patch up a truce between us for 
the time I’m here? ” 

He put out his hand in entreaty, his lean face 
earnest, his clear eyes pleading. She colored 
quickly at the suggestion, and framed a hot 
174 


THE FURY OP DOVES 


reply. He could see it forming, and went on 
hurriedly to forestall it. 

I don’t expect to be here always! I didn’t 
come here looking for a job. I was going West 
with a friend; we stopped off on the way 
through.” 

‘‘ Riding fence for a woman boss is a low- 
down job.” 

‘‘ There’s not much to it for a man that likes 
to change around. Maybe I’ll not stay very 
long. We’d just as well have peace while I’m 
here. ’ ’ 

“You haven’t got anything to do with it — 
you’re only a fence-rider! The fight’s between 
me and that girl, and I’ll cut her fence — I’ll 
cut her heart out if she gets in my road ! ’ ’ 

“ Well, I’m going to hook up this panel,” he 
said, leaning and taking hold of the wire end, 
‘ ^ so you can come here and let it down any time 
you feel like you have to cut the fence. That 
will do us about the same damage, and you 
every bit as much good.” 

She was moved out of her sullen humor by 
this proposal for giving vent to her passion 
against Vesta Philbrook. It seemed as if he 
175 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


regarded her as a child, and her part in this 
fence-feud a piece of irresponsible folly. It 
was so absurd in her eyes that she laughed. 

‘‘ I suppose you’re in earnest, but if you knew 
how foolish it sounds ! ’ ’ 

‘‘ That’s what I’m going to do, anyway. You 
know I’ll just keep on fixing the fence when you 
cut it, and this arrangement will save both of us 
trouble. I’ll put a can or something on one 
of the posts to mark the spot for you.” 

This fence isn’t any joke with us, Mr. Lam- 
bert, funny as you seem to think it. It’s more 
than a fence, it’s a symbol of all that stands be- 
tween us, all the wrongs we’ve suffered, and the 
losses, on account of it. I know it makes her 
rave to cut it, and I expect you’ll have a good 
deal of fixing to do right along. ’ ’ 

She started away, stopped a few rods beyond 
the fence, came back. 

“ There’s always a place for a good man over 
at our ranch,” she said. 

He watched her braid of hair swinging from 
side to side as she galloped away, with no regret 
for his rejected truce of the fence. She would 
come back to cut it again, and again he would 
176 


THE FURY OP DOVES 


see her. Disloyal as it might be to his employer, 
he hoped she would not delay the next excur- 
sion long. 

He had found her. No matter for the condi- 
tions under which the discovery had been made, 
his quest was at an end, his long flights of 
fancy were done. It was a marvelous thing for 
him, more wonderful than the realization of his 
first expectations would have been. This wild 
spirit of the girl was well in accord with the 
character he had given her in his imagination. 
When he watched her away that day at Misery 
he knew she was the kind of woman who would 
exact much of a man; as he looked after her 
new he realized that she would require more. 

The man who found his way to her heart 
would have to take up her hatreds, champion 
her feuds, ride in her forays, follow her wild will 
against her enemies. He would have to sink the 
refinements of his civilization, in a measure, 
discard all preconceived ideas of justice and 
honor. He would have to hate a fence. 

The thought made him smile. He was so 
h^ppy that he had found her that he could have 
absolved her of a deeper blame than this. He 
177 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


felt, indeed, as if he had come to the end of vast 
wanderings, a peace as of the cessation of tur- 
moils in his heart. Perhaps this was because 
of the immensity of the undertaking which so 
lately had lain before him, its resumption put 
off from day to day, its proportions, increasing 
with each deferment. 

He made no movement to dismount and hook 
up the cut wires, but sat looking after her as 
she grew smaller between him and the hill. He 
was so wrapped in his new and pleasant fancies 
that he did not hear the approach of a horse on 
the slope of the rise until its quickened pace as 
it reached the top brought Vesta Philbrook sud- 
denly into his view. 

‘‘ Who is that? she asked, ignoring his 
salutation in her excitement. 

“ I think it must be Miss Kerr; she belongs 
to that family, at least. 

“You caught her cutting the fence? 

“ Yes, I caught her at it.’’ 

“And you let her get away? ” 

“ There wasn’t much else that I could do,” 
he returned, with thoughtful gravity. 

Vesta sat in her saddle as rigid and erect as 
178 


THE FURY OP DOVES 


a statue, looking after the disappearing rider. 
Lambert contrasted the two women in mental 
comparison, struck by the difference in which 
rage manifested itself in their bearing. This 
one seemed as cold as marble; the other had 
flashed and glowed like hot iron. The cold ri- 
gidity before his eyes must be the slow wrath 
against which men are warned. 

The distant rider had reached the top of the 
hill from which she had spied out the land. 
Here she pulled up and looked back, turning 
her horse to face them when she saw that Lam- 
bert’s employer had joined him. A little while 
she gazed back at them, then waved her hat as in 
exultant challenge, whirled her horse, and gal- 
loped over the hill. 

That was the one taunt needed to set off the 
slow magazine of Vesta Philbrook’s wrath. She 
cut her horse a sharp blow with her quirt and 
took up the pursuit so quickly that Lambert 
could not interpose either objection or entreaty. 

Lambert felt like an intruder who had wit- 
nessed something not intended for his eyes. He 
had no thought at that moment of following and 
attempting to prevent what might turn out a 
179 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


regretful tragedy, but sat there reviling the 
land that nursed women on such a rough breast 
as to inspire these savage passions of reprisal 
and revenge. 

Vesta was riding a big brown gelding, long- 
necked, deep-chested, slim of hindquarters as 
a hound. Unless rough ground came between 
them she would overhaul that Kerr girl inside 
of four miles, for her horse lacked the wind 
for a long race, as the chase across the pasture 
had shown. In case that Vesta overtook her, 
what would she do? The answer to that was 
in Vesta’s eyes when she saw the cut wire, the 
raider riding free across the range. It was 
such an answer that it shot through Lambert 
like a lightning-stroke. 

Yet, it was not his quarrel; he could not in- 
terfere on one side or the other without draw- 
ing down the displeasure of somebody, nor as 
a neutral without incurring the wrath of both. 
This view of it did not relieve him of anxiety 
to know how the matter was going to terminate. 

He gave Whetstone the reins and galloped 
after Vesta, who was already over the hill. As 
he rode he began to realize as never before the 
180 


THE FURY OP DOVES 


smallness of this fence-cutting feud, the really 
worthless bone at the bottom of the contention. 
Here Philbrook had fenced in certain lands 
which all men agreed he had been cheated in 
buying, and heire uprose those who scorned 
him for his gullibility, and lay in wait to mur- 
der him for shutting them out of his admittedly 
worthless domain. It was a quarrel beyond 
reason to a thinking man. 

Nobody could blame Philbrook for defending 
his rights, but they seemed such worthless pos- 
sessions to stake one ^s life against day by day, 
year after year. The feud of the fence was like 
a cancerous infection. It spread to and poi- 
soned all that the wind blew on around the 
borders of that melancholy ranch. 

Here were these two women riding break- 
neck and bloody-eyed to pull guns and fight 
after £he code of the roughest. Both of them 
were primed by the accumulated hatred of their 
young lives to deeds of violence with no thought 
of consequences. It was a hard and bitter land 
that could foster and feed such passions in 
bosoms of so much native excellence; a rough 
and boisterous land, unworthy the labor that 
181 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


men lavished on it to make therein their refuge 
and their home. 

The pursued was out of sight when Lambert 
gained the hilltop, the pursuer just disappear- 
ing behind a growth of stunted brushwood in 
the winding dry valley beyond. He pushed 
after them, his anxiety increasing, hoping that 
he might overtake Vesta before she came within 
range of her enemy. Even should he succeed 
in this, he was at fault for some way of stopping 
her in her passionate design. 

He could not disarm her without bringing 
her wrath down on himself, or attempt to per- 
suade her without rousing her suspicion that he 
was leagued with her destructive neighbors. 
On the other hand, the fence-cutting girl would 
believe that he had wittingly joined in an un- 
equal and unmanly pursuit. A man’s dilemma 
between the devil and the deep water would be 
simple compared to his. 

All this he considered as he galloped along, 
leaving the matter of keeping the trail mainly 
to his horse. He emerged from the hemming 
brushwood, entering a stretch of hard tableland 
where the parched grass was red, the earth so 
182 


THE FURY OF DOVES 


hard that a horse made no hoofprint in passing. 
Across this he hurried in a ferment of fear that 
he would come too late, and down a long slope 
where sage grew again, the earth dry and yield- 
ing about its unlovely clumps. 

Here he discovered that he had left too much 
to his horse. The creature had laid a course 
to suit himself, carrying him off the trail of 
those whom he sought in such breathless state. 
He stopped, looking round him to fix his direc- 
tion, discovering to his deep vexation that 
Whetstone had veered from the course that he 
had laid for him into the south, and was head- 
ing toward the river. 

On again in the right direction, swerving 
sharply in the hope that he would cut the trail. 
So for a mile or more, in dusty, headlong race, 
coming then to the rim of a bowl-like valley 
and the sound of running shots. 

Lambert’s heart contracted in a paroxysm 
of fear for the lives of both those flaming com- 
batants as he rode precipitately into the little 
valley. The shooting had ceased when he came 
into the clear and pulled up to look for Vesta. 

The next second the two girls swept into 
183 / 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


sight. Vesta had not only overtaken her enemy, 
hnt had ridden round her and cut off her re- 
treat. She was driving her back toward the 
spot where Lambert stood, shooting at her as 
she fled, with what seemed to him a cruel and 
deliberate hand. 


184 


CHAPTER XIII 

NO HONOR IN HER BLOOD ** 

V ESTA was too far behind the other girl 
for anything like accurate shooting with 
a pistol, but Lambert feared that a chance shot 
might hit, with the most melancholy conse- 
quences for both parties concerned. No other 
plan presenting, he rode down with the inten- 
tion of placing himself between them. 

Now the Kerr girl had her gun out, and had 
turned, offering battle. She was still a consid- 
erable distance beyond him, with what appeared 
from his situation to be some three or four hun- 
dred yards between the combatants, a safe dis- 
tance for both of them if they would keep it. 
But Vesta had no intention of making it a long- 
range duel. She pulled her horse up and re- 
loaded her gun, then spurred ahead, holding her 
fire. 

Lambert saw all this as he swept down be- 
tween them like an eagle, old Whetstone hardly 
185 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


touching the ground. He cut the line between 
them not fifty feet from the Kerr girPs position, 
as Vesta galloped up. 

He held up his hand in an appeal for peace 
between them. Vesta charged up to him as he 
shifted to keep in the line of their fire, coming 
as if she would ride him down and go on to 
make an end of that chapter of the long-growing 
feud. The Kerr girl waited, her pistol hand 
crossed on the other, with the deliberate cool- 
ness of one who had no fear of the outcome. 

Vesta waved him aside, her face white as ash, 
and attempted to dash by. He caught her rein 
and whirled her horse sharply, bringing her 
face to face with him, her revolver lifted not a 
yard from his breast. 

For a moment Lambert read in her eyes an 
intention that made his heart contract. He 
held his breath, waiting for the shot. A mo- 
ment ; the film of deadly passion that obscured 
her eyes like a smoke cleared, the threatening 
gun faltered, drooped, was lowered. He twisted 
in his saddle and commanded the Kerr girl 
with a swing of the arm to go. 

She started her horse in a bound, and again 
186 


“ NO HONOR IN HER BLOOD ” 


the soul-obscuring curtain of murderous hate 
fell over Vestals eyes. She lifted her gun as 
Lambert, with a quick movement, clasped her 
wrist. 

For God^s sake, Vesta, keep your soul 
clean ! ’ ’ he said. 

His voice was vibrant with a deep earnest- 
ness that made him as solemn as a priest. She 
stared at him with widening eyes,, something 
in his manner and voice that struck to reason 
through the insulation of her anger. Her fin- 
gers relaxed on the weapon ; she surrendered it 
into his hand. 

A little while she sat staring after the fleeing 
girl, held by what thoughts he could not guess. 
Presently the rider whisked behind a point of 
sage-dotted hill and was gone. Vesta lifted her 
hands slowly and pressed them to her eyes, 
shivering as if struck by a chill. Twice or 
thrice this convulsive shudder shook her. She 
bowed her head a little, the sound of a sob be- 
hind her pressing hands. 

Lambert put her pistol back into the holster 
which dangled on her thigh from the cartridge- 
studded belt round her pliant, slender waist. 

187 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Let me take you home, Vesta,’’ he said. 

She withdrew her hands, discovering tears on 
her cheeks. Saying nothing, she started to re- 
trace the way of that mad, murderous race. 
She did not resent his familiar address, if 
conscious of it at all, for he spoke with the sym- 
pathetic tenderness one employs toward a suf- 
fering child. 

They rode hack to the fence without a word 
between them. When they came to the cut wires 
he rode through as if he intended to continue 
on with her to the ranchhouse, six or seven 
miles away. 

^ ‘ I can go on alone, Mr. Lambert, ’ ’ she said. 

‘‘ My tools are down here a mile or so. I’ll 
have to get them to fix this hole. ’ ’ 

A little way again in silence. Although he 
rode slowly she made no effort to separate from 
his company and go her way alone. She seemed 
very weary and depressed, her sensitive face 
reflecting the strain of the past hour. It had 
borne on her with the wearing intensity of 
sleepless nights. 

“I’m tired of this fighting and contending 
for evermore ! ” she said. 

188 


“ NO HONOR IN HER BLOOD 


Lambert offered no comment. There was lit- 
tle, indeed, that he could frame on his tongue 
to fit the occasion, it seemed to him, still under 
the shadow of the dreadful thing that he had 
averted but a little while before. There was a 
feeling over him that he had seen this warm, 
breathing woman, with the best of her life be- 
fore her, standing on the brink of a terrifying 
chasm into which one little movement would 
have precipitated her beyond the help of any 
friendly hand. 

She did not realize what it meant to take the 
life of another, even with full justification at 
her hand; she never had felt that weight of 
ashes above the heart, or the presence of the 
shadow that tinctured all life with its somber 
gloom. It was one thing for the law to absolve 
a slayer; another to find absolution in his own 
conscience. It was a strain that tried a man’s 
mind. A woman like Vesta Philbrook might go 
mad under the unceasing pressure and chafing 
of that load. 

When they came to where his tools and wire 
lay beside the fence, she stopped. Lambert 
dismounted in silence, tied a coil of wire to his 
189 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


saddle, strung the chain of the wire-stretcher 
on his arm. 

‘ ‘ Did you know her before you came here ? ^ ^ 
she asked, with such abruptness, such lack of 
preparation for the question, that it seemed a 
fragment of what had been running through her 
mind. 

You mean ? 

That woman, Grace Kerr.’’ 

‘‘ No, I never knew her.” 

‘‘ I thought maybe you’d met her, she’s been 
away at school somewhere — Omaha, I think. 
Were you talking to her long? ” 

Only a little while.” 

‘‘ What did you think of her? ” 

I thought,” said he, slowly, his face turned 
from her, his eyes on something miles away, 
‘ ‘ that she was a girl something could be made 
out of if she was taken hold of the right way. I 
mean,” facing her earnestly, ‘‘ that she might 
be reasoned out of this senseless barbarity, this 
raiding and running away.” 

Vesta shook her head. ‘‘ The devil’s in her; 
she was born to make trouble.” 

I got her to half agree to a truce,” said he, 
190 


“ NO HONOR IN HER BLOOD ’’ 


reluctantly, his eyes studying the ground, but 
I guess it’s all off now.” 

She wouldn’t keep her word with you,” 
she declared with great earnestness, a sad, 
rather than scornful earnestness, putting out 
her hand as if to touch his shoulder. Half way 
her intention seemed to falter; her hand fell in 
eloquent expression of her heavy thoughts. 

Of course, I don’t know.” 
a There’s no honor in the Kerr blood. Kerr 
was given many a chance by father to come up 
and be a man, and square things between them, 
but he didn’t have it in him. Neither has she. 
Her only brother was killed at Glendora after 
he ’d shot a man in the back. ’ ’ 

‘‘ It ought to have been settled, long ago, 
without all this fighting. But if people refuse 
to live by their neighbors and be decent, a good 
man among them has a hard time. I don’t 
blame you, Vesta, for the way you feel.” 

I’d have been willing to let this feud die, 
but she wouldn’t drop it. She began cutting 
the fence every summer as soon as I came home. 
She’s goaded me out of my senses, she’s put 
murder in my heart ! ” 


191 


THE DUKE OF Crn]\INEY BUTTE 


They’ve tried you almost past endurance, 
I know. But you’ve never killed anybody, 
Vesta. All there is here isn’t worth that 
price.” 

‘ ‘ I know it now, ’ ’ she said, wearily. 

‘ ^ Go home and hang your gun up, and let it 
stay there. As long as I’m here I’ll do the 
fighting when there’s any to be done.” 

You didn’t help me a little while ago. All 
you did was for her.” 

‘‘ It was for both of you,” he said, rather in- 
dignant that she should take such an unjust 
view of his interference. 

You didn’t ride in front of her and stop her 
from shooting me! ” 

^ ‘ I came to you first — you saw that. ’ ’ 

Lambert mounted, turned his horse to go back 
and mend the fence. She rode after him, im- 
pulsively. 

‘‘I’m going to stop fighting, I’m going to 
take my gun off and put it away, ’ ’ she said. 

He thought she never had appeared so hand- 
some as at that moment, a soft light in her 
eyes, the harshness of strain and anger gone 
out of her face. He offered her his hand, the 
192 


NO HONOR IN HER BLOOD 


only expression of his appreciation for her 
generous decision that came to him in the grate- 
fulness of the moment. She took it as if to seal 
a compact between them. 

YouVe come back to be a woman again,’’ 
he said, hardly realizing how strange his words 
might seem to her, expressing the one thought 
that came to the front. 

I suppose I didn’t act much like a woman 
out the»re a while ago,” she admitted, her old 
expression of sadness darkening in her eyes. 

‘‘You were a couple of wildcats,” he told her. 

‘ ‘ Maybe we can get on here now without light- 
ing, but if they come crowding it on let us men- 
folks take care of it for you; it’s no job for a 
girl. ’ ’ 

“I’m going to put the thought of it out of my 
mind, feud, fences, everything — and turn it. 
all over to you. It’s asking a lot of you to as- 
sume, but I ’m tired to the heart. ’ ’ 

“I’ll do the best by you I can as long as I’m 
here, ’ ’ he promised, simply. He started on ; she 
rode forward with him. 

“ If she comes back again, what will you 
do? ” 


193 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


‘‘ I’ll try to show her where she’s wrong, and 
maybe I can get her to hang up her gun, too. 
You ought to be friends, it seems to me — a 
couple of neighbor girls like you. ’ ’ 

We couldn’t be that,” she said, loftily, her 
old coldness coming over her momentarily, 

but if we can live apart in peace it will be 
something. Don’t trust her, Mr. Lambert, 
don’t take her word for anything. There’s no 
honor in the Kerr blood; you’ll find that out for 
yourself. It isn’t in one of them to be even a 
disinterested friend.” 

There was nothing for him to say to this, 
spoken so seriously that it seemed almost a 
prophecy. He felt as if she had looked into the 
window of his heart and read his secret and, in 
her old enmity for this slim girl of the danglings 
braid of hair, was working subtly to raise a bar- 
rier of suspicion and distrust between them. 

“ I’ll go on home and quit bothering you,” 
she said. 

You’re no bother to me, Vesta; I like to 
have you along.” 

She stopped, looked toward the place where 
she had lately ridden through the fence in 
194 


“ NO HONOR IN HER BLOOD 


vengeful pursuit of her enemy, her eyes inscru- 
table, her face sad. 

‘ ‘ I never felt it so lonesome out here as it is 
today,’’ she said, and turned her horse, and 
left him. 

He looked hack more than once as he rode 
slowly along the fence, a mist before his per- 
ception that he could not pierce. What had 
come over Vesta to change her so completely in 
this little while ? He believed she was entering 
the shadow of some slow-growing illness, which 
bore down her spirits in an uninterpreted fore- 
boding of evil days to come. 

What a pretty figure she made in the saddle, 
riding away from him in that slow canter ; how 
well she sat, how she swayed at the waist as her 
nimble animal cut in and out among the clumps 
of sage. A mighty pretty girl, and as good as 
they grew them anywhere. It would be a ca- 
lamity to have her sick. From the shoulder of 
the slope he looked back again. Pretty as any 
woman a man ever pictured in his dreams. 

She passed out of sight without looking back, 
and there rose a picture in his thoughts to take 
her place, a picture of dark, defiant eyes, of tell- 
195 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


tale hair falling in betrayal of her disguise, as 
if discovering her secret to him who had a right 
to know. 

The fancy pleased him; as he worked to re- 
pair the damage she had wrought, he smiled. 
How well his memory retained her, in her tran- 
sition from anger to scorn, scorn to uneasy 
amazement, amazement to relief. Then she had 
smiled, and the recognition not owned in words 
but spoken in her eyes, had come. 

Yes, she knew him ; she recalled her challenge, 
his acceptance and victory. Even as she rode 
swiftly to obey him out of that mad encounter 
in the valley over there, she had owned in her 
quick act that she knew him, and trusted him 
as she sped away. 

When he came to the place where she had rid- 
den through, he pieced the wire and hooked the 
ends together, as he had told her he would do. 
He handled even the stubborn wire tenderly, 
as a man might the appurtenances to a rite. 
Perhaps he was linking their destinies in that 
simple act, he thought, sentimentally unreason- 
able ; it might be that this spot would mark the 
second altar of his romance, even as the little 
196 


NO HONOR IN HER BLOOD 


station of Misery was lifted up in his heart as 
the shrine of its beginning. 

There was blood on his knuckles where the 
vicious wire had tom him. He dashed it to 
the ground as a libation, smiling like one moon- 
struck, a flood of soft fancies making that bleak 
spot dear. 


) 


197 


CHAPTER XIV 


NOTICE IS SERVED 

T ATERLEG was finding things easier on 
his side of the ranch. Nick Hargus was 
lying still, no hostile acts had been committed. 
This may have been due to the fierce and bris- 
tling appearance of Taterleg, as he humorously 
declared, or because Hargus was waiting reen- 
forcements from the penal institutions of his 
own and surrounding states. 

Taterleg had a good many nights to himself, 
as a consequence of the security which his grisly 
exterior had brought. These he spent at Glen- 
dora, mainly on the porch of the hotel in com- 
pany of Alta Wood, chewing gum together as 
if they wove a fabric to bind their lives in ad- 
hesive amity to the end. 

Lambert had a feeling of security for his line 
of fence, also, as he rode home on the evening 
of his adventurous day. He had left a note on 
the pieced wire reminding Grace Kerr of his 
198 


NOTICE IS SERVED 


request that she ease her spite by unhooking 
it there instead of cutting it in a new place. He 
also added the information that he would he 
there on a certain date to see how well she car- 
ried out his wish. 

He wondered whether she would read his 
hope that she would he there at the same hour, 
or whether she might he afraid to risk Vesta 
Philbrook’s fury again. There was an eager- 
ness in him for the hastening of the interven- 
ing time, a joyous lightness which tuned him to 
such harmony with the world that he sang as 
he rode. 

Taterleg was going to Glendora that night. 
He pressed Lambert to join him. 

‘ ^ A man ’s got to take a day off sometimes to 
rest his face and hands,’’ he argued. Them 
fellers can’t run off any stock tonight, and if 
they do they can’t git very far away with ’em 
before we ’d be on their necks. They know that ; 
they’re as safe as if we had ’em where they be- 
long. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I guess you ’re right on that, Taterleg. I ’ve 
got to go to town to buy me a pair of clothes, 
anyhow, so I’ll go you.” 

199 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Taterleg was as happy as a cricket, humming 
a tune as he went along. He had made liberal 
application of perfume to his handkerchief and 
mustache, and of barber ^s pomatum to his hair. 
He had fixed his hat on carefully, for the pro- 
tection of the cowlick that came down over his 
left eyebrow, and he could not be stirred beyond 
a trot all the way to Glendora for fear of dam- 
age that might result. 

‘‘ I had a run-in with that feller the other 
night, he said. 

What feller do you mean? ’’ 

Jedlick, dern him.’^ 

‘‘You did? I didn’t notice any of your ears 
bit ofe.” 

“No, we didn’t come to licks. He tried to 
horn in while me and Alta was out on the 
porch.” 

“ What did you do? ” 

“ I didn’t have a show to do anything but 
hand him a few words. Alta she got me by the 
arm and drug me in the parlor and slammed the 
door* No use tryin’ to break away from that 
girl; she could pull a elephant away from his 
hay if she took a notion. ’ ’ 

200 


NOTICE IS SERVED 


‘‘ Didn’t Jedlick try to hang on^ ” 

“ No, he stood out in the office rumblin’ to 
the old man, but that didn’t bother me no more 
than the north wind when you’re in bed under 
four blankets. Alta she played me some tunes 
on her pi^-tar and sung me some songs. I tell 
you, Duke, I just laid back and shut my eyes. 
I felt as easy as if I owned the railroad from 
here to Omaha.” 

How long are you going to keep it up? ” 

'Which up, Duke? ” 

‘‘ Courtin’ Alta. You’ll have to show off 
.your tricks pretty regular, I think, if you want 
to hold your own in that ranch.” 

Taterleg rode along considering it. 

Ye-es, I guess a feller’ll have to act if he 
wants to hold Alta. She’s young, and the 
young like change. ’Specially the girls. A man 
to keep Alta on the line’ll have to marry her 
and set her to raisin’ children. You know, 
Duke, there’s something new to a girl in every 
man she sees. She likes to have him around till 
she leans ag’in’ him and rubs the paint off, then 
she’s out shootin’ eyes at another one.” 

^^Are there others besides Jedlick? ” 

201 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


That bartender boards there at the ho-ie\. 
He’s got four gold teeth, and he picks ’em with 
a quill. Sounds like somebody slappin’ the 
crick with a fishin’-pole. But them teeth give 
him a standin’ in society; they look like money 
in the bank. Nothing to his business, though, 
Duke ; no sentiment or romance or anything. ’ ’ 
Not much. Who else is there sitting in this 
Alta game? ” 

“ Young feller with a neck like a bottle, off of 
a ranch somewhere back in the hills.” 

Taterleg mentioned him as with considera- 
tion. Lambert concluded that he was a riv^l to 
be reckoned with, but gave Taterleg his oVn 
way of coming to that. 

‘‘ That feller’s got a watch with a music box. 
in the back of it, Duke. Ever see one of ’em ? ’ ’ 
No, I never did.” 

‘‘ Well, he’s got one of ’em, all right. He 
starts that thing up about the time he hits the 
steps, and comes in playin’ ‘ Sweet Vilelets ’ 
like he just couldn’t help bustin’ out in music 
the minute he comes in sight of Alta. That fel- 
ler gives me a pain ! ’ ’ 

The Duke smiled. To every man his own af- 
202 


NOTICE IS SERVED 


fair is romance; every other man^s a folly or a 
diverting comedy, indeed. 

* ‘ She ’s a little too keen on that feller to suit 
me, Duke. She sets out there with him, and 
winds that fool watch and plays them two tunes 
over till you begin to sag, loanin’ her elbow on 
his shoulder like she had him paid for and 
didn’t care whether he broke or not.” 

‘‘ What is the other tune? ” 

It’s that one that goes: 

A heel an* a toe and a po*ky-o, 

A heel an* a toe and a po*ky-o 

— you know that one. ’ ’ 

i “I’ve heard it. She ’ll get tired of that watch 
kfter a while, Taterleg.” 

L “ Maybe. If she don’t, I guess I’ll have to 
pgger some way to beat it. ’ ’ 

“ What are Jedlick’s attractions? Surely 
not good looks. ” 

“ Money, Duke; that’s the answer to him — 
money. He’s got a salt barrel full of it; the 
old man favors him for that money.” 

“ That’s harder to beat than a music box in 


a watch.” 


203 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


^ ^ You canH beat it, Duke. What good looks 
by the side of money I Or brains? Well, they 
don^t amount to cheese! 

‘‘Are you goin^ to sidestep in favor of Jed- 
lick? A man with all your experience and good 
clothes! ’’ 

“ Me? I^m a-goin’ to lay that feller out on 
a board ! ’ ’ 

They hitched at the hotel rack, that looking 
more respectable, as Taterleg said, than to leave 
their horses in front of the saloon. Alta was 
heard singing in the interior; there were two 
railroad men belonging to a traveling paint 
gang on the porch smoking their evening pipes. 

Lambert felt that it was his duty to buy ci- 
gars in consideration of the use of the hitching- 
rack. AVpod appeared in the office door as they 
came up the steps, and put his head beyond the 
jamb, looking this way and that, like a man con- 
sidering a sortie with enemies lying in wait. 

Taterleg went into the parlor to offer the in-' 
cense of his cigar in the presence of Alta, who 
was cooing a sentimental ballad to her guitar. 
It seemed to be of parting, and the hope of re- 
union, involving one named Irene. There was 
204 


NOTICE IS SERVED 


a run in the chorus accompaniment which Alta 
had down very neatly. 

The tinkling guitar, the simple, plaintive mel- 
ody, sounded to Lambert as refreshing as the 
plash of a brook in the heat of the day. He 
stood listening, his elbow on the show case, 
thinking vaguely that Alta had a good voice for 
singing babies to sleep. 

Wood stood in the door again, his stump of 
arm lifted a little with an alertness about it that 
made Lambert think of a listening ear. He 
looked up and down the street in that uneasy, 
inquiring way that Lambert had remarked on 
his arrival, then came back and got himself a 
cigar. He stood across the counter from Lam- 
bert a little while, smoking, his brows drawn in 
trouble, his eyes shifting constantly to the door. 
Duke,’^ said he, as if with an effort, 
there ^s a man in town lookin’ for you. I 
thought I’d tell you.” 

* ‘ Lookin ’ for me 1 Who is he I ” 

Sim Hargus.” 

‘‘ You don’t mean Nick? ” 

No; he’s Nick’s brother. I don’t suppose 
you ever met him. ’ ’ 


205 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


‘ ‘ I never heard of him. ’ ’ 

He’s only been back from Wyoming a week 
or two. He was over there some time — several 
years, I believe.” 

In the pen over there? ” 

Wood took a careful survey of the door be- 
fore replying, working his cigar over to the 
other side of his mouth in the way that a one- 
arined man acquires the trick. 

<< I — they say he got mixed up in a cattle 
deal down there. ’ ’ 

Lambert smoked in silence a little while, his 
head bent, his face thoughtful. Wood shifted 
a little nearer, standing straight and alert be- 
hind his counter as if prepared to act in some 
sudden emergency. 

Does he live around here? ” Lambert 
asked. 

He’s workin’ for Berry Kerr, foreman 
over there. That’s the job he used to have be- 
fore he — left.” 

Lambert grunted, expressing that he under- 
stood the situation. He stood in his leaning, 
careless posture, arm on the show case, thumb 
hooked in his belt near his gun. 

206 


NOTICE IS SERVED 


I thought I^d tell you/^ said Wood un- 
easily. 

Thanks. 

Wood came a step nearer along the counter, 
leaned his good arm on it, watching the door 
without a break. 

He’s one of the old gang that used to give 
Philbrook so much trouble — he’s carryin’ lead 
that Philbrook shot into him now. So he ’s got 
it in for that ranch, and everybody on it. I 
thought I’d tell you.” 

‘‘I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Wood,” said 
Lambert heartily. 

“ He’s one of these kind of men you want to 
watch out for when your back ’s turned, Duke. ’ ’ 

“ Thanks, old feller; I’ll keep in mind what 
you say.” 

‘ ‘ I don ’t want it to look like I was on one side 
or the other, you understand, Duke; but I 
thought I’d tell you. Sim Hargus is one of them 
kind of men that a woman don’t dare to show 
her face around where he is without the risk of 
bein’ insulted. He’s a foul-mouthed, foul- 
minded man, the kind of a feller that ought to 
be treated like a rattlesnake in the road.” 

207 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Lambert thanked him again for his friendly 
information, understanding at once his watch- 
ful uneasiness and the absence of Alta from the 
front of the house. He was familiar with that 
type of man such as Wood had described Har- 
gus as being; he had met some of them in the 
Bad Lands. There was nothing holy to them in 
the heavens or the earth. They did not believe 
there was any such thing as a virtuous, woman, 
and honor was a word they never had heard de- 
fined. 

ITl go out and look him up,” Lambert said. 
‘‘If he happens to come in here askin^ about 
me, ITl be in either the store or the saloon.” 

“ There ^s where he is, Duke — in the sa- 
loon. ’ ^ 

“ I supposed he was.” 

“ You’ll kind of run into him natural, won’t 
you, Duke, and not let him think I tipped you 
off? ” 

“ Just as natural as the wind.” 

Lambert went out. From the hitching-rack he 
saw Wood at his post of vigil in the door, watch- 
ing the road with anxious mien. It was a Satur- 
day night ; the town was full of visitors. Lam* 
208 


NOTICE IS SERVED 


bert went on to the saloon, hitching at the long 
rack in front where twenty or thirty horses 
stood. 

The custom of the country made it almost an 
obligatory courtesy to go in and spend money 
when one hitched in front of a saloon, an excuse 
for entering that Lambert accepted with a grim 
feeling of satisfaction. While he didnT want 
it to appear that he was crowding a quarrel with 
any man, the best way to meet a fellow who had 
gone spreading it abroad that he was out look- 
ing for one was to go where he was to be found. 
It wouldnT look right to leave town without 
giving Hargus a chance to state his business ; it 
would be a move subject to misinterpretation, 
and damaging to a man ^s good name. 

There was a crowd in the saloon, which had 
a smoky, blurred look through the open door. 
Some of the old gambling gear had been uncov- 
ered and pushed out from the wall. A faro 
game was running, with a dozen or more play- 
ers, at the end of the bar; several poker tables 
stretched across the gloomy front of what had 
been the ballroom of more hilarious days. 
These players were a noisy outfit. Little money 
209 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


was being risked, but it was going with enough 
profanity to melt it. 

Lambert stood at the end of the bar near the 
door, his liquor in his hand, lounging in his care- 
less attitude of abstraction. But there was not 
a lax fiber in his body ; every faculty was alert, 
every nerve set for any sudden development. 
The scene before him was disgusting, rather 
than diverting, in its squalid imitation of the 
rough-and-ready times which had passed before 
many of these men were old enough to carry the 
weight of a gun. It was just a sporadic out- 
burst, a pustule come to a sudden head that 
would burst before morning and clear away. 

Lambert ran his eye among the twenty-five or 
thirty men in the place. All appeared to be 
strangers to him. He began to assort their 
faces, as one searches for something in a heap, 
trying to fix on one that looked mean enough to 
belong to a Hargus. A mechanical banjo sud- 
denly added its metallic noise to the din, fit 
music, it seemed, for such obscene company. 
Some started to , dance lumberingly, with high- 
lifted legs and ludicrous turkey struts. 

Among these Lambert recognized Tom Har- 
210 


NOTICE IS SERVED 


gus, the young man who had made the nngallant 
attempt to pass Vesta Philbrook^s gate with his 
father. He had more whisky under his dark 
skin than he could take care of. As he jigged 
on limber legs he threw his hat down with a 
whoop, his long black hair falling around his 
ears and down to his eyes, bringing out the In- 
dian that slept in him sharper than the liquor 
had done it. 

His face was flushed, his eyes were heavy, as 
if he had been under headway a good while. 
Lambert watched him as he pranced about, 
chopping his steps with feet jerked up straight 
like a string-halt horse. The Indian was work- 
ing, trying to express itself in him through this 
exaggerated imitation of his ancestral dances. 
His companions fell back in admiration, giving 
him the floor. 

A cowboy was feeding money into the music 
box to keep it going, giving it a coin, together 
with certain grave, drunken advice, whenever it 
showed symptom of a pause. Young Hargus 
circled about in the middle of the room, barking 
in little short yelps. Every time he passed his 
hat he kicked at it, sometimes hitting, oftener 
211 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


missing it, at last driving it over against Lam- 
bert’s foot, where it lodged. 

Lambert pushed it away. A man beside him 
gave it a kick that sent it spinning back into the 
trodden circle. Tom was at that moment round- 
ing his beat at the farther end. He came face 
about just as the hat skimmed across the floor, 
stopped, jerked himself up stiffly, looked at 
Lambert with a leap of anger across his 
drunken face. 

Immediately there was silence in the crowd 
that had been assisting oh the side lines of his 
performance. They saw that Tom resented this 
treatment of his hat by any foot save his own. 
The man who had kicked it had fallen back with 
shoulders to the bar, where he stood presenting 
the face of innocence. Tom walked out to the 
hat, kicked it back within a few feet of Lam- 
bert, his hand on his gun. 

He was all Indian now ; the streak of smoky 
white man was engulfed. His handsome face 
was black with the surge of his lawless blood as 
he stopped a little way in front of Lambert. 

Pick up that hat! ” he commanded, smoth- 
ering his words in an avalanche of profanity. 

212 


NOTICE IS SERVED 


Lambert scarcely changed his position, save 
to draw himself erect and stand clear of the 
bar. To those in front of him he seemed to be 
carelessly lounging, like a man with time on his 
hands, peace before him. 

‘ ‘ Who was your nigger last year, young fel- 
ler? he asked, with good-humor in his words. 
He was reading Tom’s eyes as a prize fighter 
reads his opponent ’s, watching every change of 
feature, every strain of facial muscle. Before 
young Hargus had put tension on his sinews to 
draw his weapon, Lambert had read his inten- 
tion. 

The muzzle of the pistol was scarcely free of 
the scabbard when Lambert cleared the two 
yards between them in one stride. A grip of the 
wrist, a twist of the arm, and the gun was flung 
across the room. Tom struggled desperately, 
not a word out of him, striking with his free 
hand. Sinewy as he was, he was only a toy in 
Lambert’s hands. 

‘‘ I don’t want to have any trouble with you, 
kid,” said Lambert, capturing Tom’s other 
hand and holding him as he would have held a 
boy. ‘ ‘ Put on your hat and go home. ’ ’ 

213 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Lambert released him, and turned as if he 
considered the matter ended. At his elbow a 
man stood, staring at him with insolent, threat- 
ening eyes. He was somewhat lower of stature 
than Lambert, thick in the shoulders, firmly set 
on the feet, with small mustache, almost color- 
less and harsh as hog bristles. His thin eye- 
brows were white, his hair but a shade darker, 
his skin light for an outdoors man. This, taken 
with his pale eyes, gave him an appearance of 
bloodless cruelty which the sneer on his lip 
seemed to deepen and express. 

Behind Lambert men were holding Tom Har- 
gus, who had made a lunge to recover his gun. 
He heard them trying to quiet him, while he 
growled and whined like a wolf in a trap. Lam- 
bert returned the stranger ^s stare, withholding 
anything from his eyes that the other could 
read, as some men born with a certain cold cour- 
age are able to do. He went back to the bar, 
the man going with him shoulder to* shoulder, 
turning his malevolent eyes to continue his un- 
broken stare. 

‘ ‘ Put up that gun ! ’ ’ the fellow said, turning 
sharply to Tom Hargus, who had wrenched free 
2H 


NOTICE IS SERVED 


and recovered his weapon. Tom obeyed him in 
silence, picked up his hat, beat it against his 
leg, put it on. 

You’re the Duke of Chimney Butte, are 
you? ” the stranger inquired, turning again 
with his sneer and cold, insulting eyes to Lam- 
bert, who knew him now for Sim Hargus, fore- 
man for Berry Kerr. 

If you know me, there’s no need for us to 
be introduced,” Lambert returned. 

Duke of Chimney Butte!” said Har^s 
with immeasurable scorn. He grunted his 
words with such an intonation of insult that it 
would have been pardonable to shoot him on the 
spot. Lambert was slow to kindle. He put a 
curb now on even his naturally deliberate ve- 
hicle of wrath, looking the man through his shal- 
low eyes down to the roots of his mean soul. 

You’re the feller that’s come here to teach 
us fellers to take off our hats when we see a 
fence,” Hargus said, looking meaner with every 
breath. 

You’ve got it right, pardner,” Lambert 
calmly replied. 

Duke of Chimney Butte! Well, pardner, 
215 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


I'm tl^e King of Hotfoot Valley, and I've got 
travelin' papers for you right here! " 

‘‘You seem to be a little sudden about it," 
Lambert said, a lazy drawl to his words that in- 
flamed Hargus like a blow. 

“ Not half as sudden as you'll be, kid. This 
country ain't no place for you, young feller; 
you're too fresh to keep in this hot climate, and 
the longer you stay the hotter it gits. I 'll give 
you just two days to make your gitaway in. ' ' 

“ Consider the two days up," said Lambert 
with such calm and such coolness of head that 
men who heard him felt a thrill of admiration. 

“ This ain't no joke! " Hargus corrected 
him. 

“ I believe you, Hargus. As far as it con- 
cerns me, I'm just as far from this country 
right now as I'll be in two days, or maybe two 
years. Consider your limit up. ' ' 

It was so still in the barroom that one could 
have heard a match burn. Lambert had drawn 
himself up stiff and straight before Hargus, and 
stood facing him with defiance in every line of 
his stern, strong face. 

“ I've give you your rope," Hargus said, 
216 


NOTICE IS SERVED 


feeling that he had been called to show his hand 
in an open manner that was not his style, and 
playing for a fodting to save his face. If you 
ain’t gone in two days you’ll settle with me.” 

That goes with me, Hargus. It’s your 
move. ’ ’ 

Lambert turned, contempt in his courageous 
bearing, and walked out of the place, scorning 
to throw a glance behind to see whether Hargus 
came after him, or whether he laid hand to his 
weapon in the treachery that Lambert had read 
in his eyes. 


217 


CHAPTER XV 

WOLVES OF THE RANGE 


L ambert left his horse at the saloon hitch- 
/ ing-rack while he went to the store. Busi- 
ness was brisk in that place, also, requiring a 
wait of half an hour before his turn came. In 
a short time thereafter he completed his pur- 
chases, tied his package to his saddle, and was 
ready to go home. 

The sound of revelry was going forward 
again in the saloon, the mechanical banjo plug- 
ging away on its tiresome tune. There was a 
gap here and there at the rack where horses had 
been taken away, but most of them seemed to 
be anchored there for the night, standing de- 
jectedly with drooping heads. 

The tinkle of Alta’s guitar sounded through 
the open window of the hotel parlor as he 
passed, indicating that Taterleg was still in 
that harbor. It would be selfish to call him, 
making the most as he was of a clear field. 
218 


WOLVES OF THE RANGE 


Lambert smiled as he recalled the three-cor- 
nered rivalry for Altars bony hand. 

There was a lemon-rind slice of new moon low 
in the southwest, giving a dusky light, the hud- 
dling sage clumps at the roadside blotches of 
deepest shadow. Lambert ruminated on the 
trouble that had been laid out for him that night 
as he rode away from town, going slowly, in no 
hurry to put walls between him and the soft, 
pleasant night. 

He was confronted by the disadvantage of an 
unsought notoriety, or reputation, or whatever 
his local fame might be called. A man with a 
fighting name must live up to it, however dis- 
tasteful the strife and turmoil, or move beyond 
the circle of his fame. Move he would not, could 
not, although it seemed a foolish thing, on re- 
flection, to hang on there in the lure of Grace 
Kerr’s dark eyes. 

What could a man reasonably expect of a girl 
with such people as Sim Hargus as her daily 
associates? Surely she had been schooled in 
their warped view of justice, as her act that day 
proved. No matter for Omaha and its refine- 
ments, she must be a savage under the skin. 

219 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


But gentle or savage, he had a tender regard 
for her, a feeling of romantic sympathy that 
had been groping out to find her as a plant in 
a pit strains toward the light. Now, in the sun- 
shine of her presence, would it flourish and 
grow green, or wither in its mistaken worship 
and die 1 

Vesta had warned him, not knowing anything 
of the peculiar circumstances which brought 
him to that place, or of his discovery, which 
seemed a revelation of fate, the conjunction of 
events shaped before his entry upon the stage, 
indeed. She had warned him, but in the face of 
things as they had taken place, what would it 
avail a man to turn his hack on the arrange- 
ments of destiny*? As it was written, so it must 
be lived. It was not in his hand or his heart to 
change it. 

Turning these things in his mind, flavoring 
the bitter in the prospect with the sweet of ro- 
mance, he was drawn out of his wanderings by 
the sudden starting of his horse. It was not a 
shying start, but a stiffening of attitude, a leap 
out of laxity into alertness, with a lifting of the 
head, a fixing of the ears as if on some object 
220 


WOLVES OP THE RANGE 


ahead, of which it was at once curious and 
afraid. 

Lambert was all tension in a breath. Ahead 
a little way the road branched at the point of 
the hill leading to the Philbrook house. His 
road lay to the right of the jutting plowshare 
of hill which seemed shaped for the mere pur- 
pose of splitting the highway. The other 
branch led to Kerr’s ranch, and beyond. The 
horse was plainly scenting something in this 
latter branch of the road, still hidden by the 
bushes which grew as tall there as the head of a 
man on horseback. 

As the horse trotted on, Lambert made out 
something lying in the road which looked, at 
that distance, like the body of a man. Closer 
approach proved this to be the case, indeed. 
Whether the man was alive or dead, it was im- 
possible to determine from the saddle, but he 
lay in a huddled heap as if he had been thrown 
from a horse, his hat in the road some feet be- 
yond. 

WTietstone would not approach nearer than 
ten or twelve feet. There he stood, swelling his 
sides with long-drawn breaths, snorting his 
221 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


warning, it seemed, expressing his suspicion in 
the best manner that he could command. Lam- 
bert spoke to him, but could not quiet his fear. 
He could feel the sensitive creature tremble un- 
der him, and took it as certain that the man 
must be dead. 

Dismounting, he led the horse and bent over 
the man in the road. He could see the fellow’s 
shoulder move as he breathed, and straightened 
up with a creeping of apprehension that this 
might be a trap to draw him into just such a 
situation as he found himself that moment. The 
nervousness of his horse rather increased than 
quieted, also, adding color to his fear. 

His foot was in the stirrup when a quick rush 
sounded behind him. He saw the man on the 
ground spring to his feet, and quick on the con- 
sciousness of that fact there came a blow that 
stretched him as stiff as a dead man. 

Lambert came to himself with a half-drowned 
sense of suffocation. Water was falling on his 
head, pouring over his face, and there was the 
confused sound of human voices around him. 
As he cleared he realized that somebody was 
standing over him, pouring water on his head. 

222 


WOLVES OP THE RANGE 


He struggled to get from under the drowning 
stream. A man laughed, shook him, cursed him 
vilely close to his ear. 

Wake up, little feller, somebody ^s a-cuttin^ 
your fence! ’’ said another, taking hold of him 
from the other side. 

Don’t hurt him, boys,” admonished a third 
voice, which he knew for Berry Kerr’s — this 
is the young man who has come to the Bad 
Lands with a mission. He ’s going to teach peo- 
ple to take otf their hats to barbed-wire fences. 
I wouldn’t have him hurt for a keg of nails.” 

He came near Lambert now, put a hand on 
his shoulder, and asked him with a gentle kind- 
ness how he felt. 

Lambert did not answer him, for he had no 
words adequate to describe his feelings at that 
moment to a friend, much less an enemy whose 
intentions were unknown. He sat, fallen for- 
ward, in a limp and miserable heap, drenched 
with water, clusters of fire gathering and break- 
ing like showers of a rocket before his eyes. His 
head throbbed and ached in maddening pain. 
This was so great that it seemed to submerge 
every faculty save that of hearing, to paralyze 
223 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


him so entirely that he could not lift a hand. 
That blow had all but killed him. 

‘ ‘ Let him alone — he dl be all right in a min- 
ute/’ said Kerr’s voice, sounding close to his 
ear as if he stoopeddo examine him. 

One was standing behind Lambert, knees 
against his back to prevent his entire collapse. 
The others drew off a little way. There fol- 
lowed the sound of horses, as if they prepared 
to ride. It seemed as if the great pain in Lam- 
bert’s head attended the return of conscious- 
ness, as it attends the return of circulation. It 
soon began to grow easier, settling down to a 
throb with each heartbeat, as if aU his life forces 
rushed to that spot and clamored against his 
skull to be released. He stiffened, and sat 
straight. 

‘ ‘ I guess you can stick on your horse now, ’ ’ 
said the man behind him. 

The fellow left him at that. Lambert could 
see the heads and shoulders of men, the heads 
of horses, against the sky, as if they were below 
the river bank. He felt for his gun. No sur- 
prise was in store for him there ; it was gone. 

He was unable to mount when they brought 
224 


WOLVES OP THE RANGE 


his horse. He attempted it, in confusion of 
senses that made it seem the struggle of some- 
body whom he watched and wanted to help, but 
could not. They lifted him, tied his feet under 
the horse, his hands to the saddle-hom. In this 
fashion they started away with him, one riding 
ahead, one on either hand. He believed that 
one or more came following, but of this, he was 
not sure. 

He knew it would be useless to make inquiry 
of their intentions. That would bring down on 
him derision, after their savage way. Stolidly 
as an Indian he rode among them to what end 
^e could not imagine; but at the worst, he be- 
lieved they would not go beyond some further 
torture of him to give him an initiation into 
what he must expect unless he accepted their 
decree that he quit the country forthwith. 

As his senses cleared Lambert recognized the 
men beside him as Sim Hargus and the half-In- 
dian, Tom. Behind him he believed Nick Har- 
gus rode, making it a family party. In such 
hands, with such preliminary usage, it began 
to look very grave for him. 

When they saw there was no danger of his 
225 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


collapse, they began to increase their pace. 
Bound as he was, every step of the horse was 
increased torture to Lambert. He appealed to 
Sim Hargus to release his hands. 

You can tie them behind me if you’re 
afraid,” he suggested. 

Hargus cursed him, refusing to ease his sit- 
uation. Kerr turned on hearing this outburst 
and inquired what it meant. Hargus repeated 
the prisoner’s request with obscene embellish- 
ment. They made no secret of each other’s 
identity, speaking familiarly, as if in the pres- 
ence of one who would make no future charges. 
Kerr found the request reasonable, and ordered 
Hargus to tie Lambert’s hands at his back. 

I guess you might as well take your last 
ride comfortable, kid,” Hargus commented, as 
he shifted the bonds. 

They proceeded at a trot, keeping it up for 
two hours or more. Lambert knew it was about 
ten o’clock when he stopped to investigate the 
man in the road. There was a feel in the air 
now that told him it was far past the turn of 
night. He knew about where they were in re- 
lation to the ranch by this time, for a man who 
226 


WOLVES OF THE RANGE 

lives in the open places develops his sense of 
direction nntil it serves him as a mole^s in its 
underground tunneling. 

There was no talking among his conductors, 
no sound but the tramp of the horses in unceas- 
ing trot, the scraping of the hushes on the stir- 
rups as they passed. Lambert ^s legs were 
drawn close to his horse’s belly, his feet not in 
the stirrups, and tied so tightly that he rode in 
painful rigidity. The brush caught the loose 
stirrups and flung them against Whetstone’s 
sides, treatment that he resented with all the in- 
dignation of a genuine range horse. The twist- 
ing and jumping made Lambert’s situation 
doubly uncomfortable. He longed for the end 
of the journey, no matter what awaited him at 
its conclusion. 

For some time Lambert had noticed a glow 
as of a fire directly ahead of them. It grew and 
sank as if being fed irregularly, or as if smoke 
blew before it from time to time. Presently 
they rounded the base of a hill and came sud- 
denly upon the fire, burning in a gulch, as it 
seemed, covering a large area, sending up a vast 
volume of smoke. 


227 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Lambert had seen smoke in this direction 
many times while riding fence, but could not 
account for it then any more than he could now 
for a little while as he stood facing its origin. 
Then he understood that this was a burning 
vein of lignite, such as he had seen traces of in 
the gorgeously colored soil in other parts of the 
Bad Lands where the fires had died out and 
cooled long ago. 

These fires are peculiar to the Bad Lands, 
and not uncommon there, owing their origin to 
forest or prairie blazes which spread to the ex- 
posed veins of coal. As these broad, deep de- 
posits of lignite lie near the surfjpice, the fire can 
be seen through crevasses and fallen sections of 
crust. Sometimes they burn for years. 

At the foot of the steep bank on wMch Lam- 
bert and his captors stood the crust had caved, 
giving the fire air to hasten its ravages. The 
mass of slow-moving fire glowed red and in- 
tense, covered in places by its own ashes, now 
sending up sudden clouds of smoke as an in- 
draft of air livened the combustion, now smol- 
dering in sullen dullness, throwing off a heat 
that made the horses draw back. 

228 


WOLVES OF THE RANGE 


Kerr drew aside on arriving at the fire, and 
sat his horse looking at it, the light on his face. 
Sim Hargus pointed to the glowing pit. 

‘ ‘ That ^s our little private hell. What do yo];i 
think of it, kid? ’’ he said, with his grunting, 
insulting sneer. 

The fire was visible only in front of them, in 
a jagged, irregular strip marking the cave-in 
of the crust. It ranged from a yard to ten yards 
across, and appeared to extend on either hand 
a long distance. The bank on which Lambert’s 
horse stood formed one shore of this fiery 
stream, which he estimated to be four yards or 
more across ^t^that point. ^On the other side a 
recent settling of earth had exposed the coal, 
which was burning brightly in a fringe of red 
flame. Whether the fire underlay the ground 
beyond that point Lambert could not tell. 

‘ ‘ Quite a? sight by night, isn ’t it ? ” said Kerr. 
‘‘ It covers several acres,” he explained, as if 
answering the speculation that rose, irrele- 
vantly in the face of his pain, humiliation and 
anxiety, in Lambert’s mind. What did it mat- 
ter to him how much ground it covered, or when 
it began, or when it would die, when his own 
229 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


life was as uncertain that minute as a match- 
flame in the wind. 

Why had they brought him there to show him 
that burning coal-pit? Not out of any desire to 
display the natural wonders of the land. The 
answer was in the fact itself. Only the diabo- 
lism of a savage mind could contrive or coun- 
tenance such barbarity as they had come to sub- 
mit him to. 

* ‘ I lost several head of stock down below here 
a little way last winter,’’ said Kerr. ‘‘ They 
crowded out over the fire in a blizzard and 
broke through. If a man was to ride in there 
through ignorance I doubt if he’d ever be able 
to get out.” 

Kerr sat looking speculatively into the glow- 
ing pit below, the firelight red over him in 
strong contrast of gleam and shadow. Sim 
Hargus leaned to look Lambert in the face. 

** You said I was to consider the two days I 
give you was up, ’ ’ said he. 

‘‘You understood it right,” Lambert told 
him. 

Hargus drew back his fist. Kerr interposed, 
speaking sharply. 


230 


WOLVES OP THE RANGE 


YouTl not hit a man with his arms tied 
while I^m around, Sim,’^ he said. 

Let him loose, then — put him down before 
me on his feet! 

Leave the kid alone, said Kerr, in his 
even, provoking voice. ‘‘ I think he^s the kind ^ 
of a hoy that will take friendly advice if you 
come up on the right side of him. ’ ’ 

Don’t he all night about it,” said Nick 
Hargus from his place behind Lambert, break- 
ing silence in sullen voice. 

Kerr rode up to Lambert and took hold of his 
reins, stroking old Whetstone’s neck as if he 
didn’t harbor an unkind thought for either man 
or beast. 

“ It’s this way, Duke,” he said. ** You’re a 
stranger here ; the customs of this country are 
not the customs you’re familiar with, and it’s 
foolish, very foolish, and maybe dangerous, for 
you to try to change things around single- 
handed and alone. We’ve used you a little 
rougher than I intended the boys to handle you, 
but you’ll get over it in a little while, and we’re 
going to let you go this time. 

But we’re going to turn you loose with the 
231 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 

warning once more to clear out of this country 
in as straight a line as you can draw, starting 
right now, and keeping on till you’re out of the 
state. You’ll excuse us if we keep your gun; 
you can send me your address when you land, 
and I’ll ship it to you. We’ll have to start you 
off tied up, too, much as I hate to do it. You’ll 
find some way to get loose in a little while, I 
guess, a man that’s as resourceful and original 
as you.” 

Tom Hargus had not said a word since they 
left the river. 'Now he leaned over and peered 
into Lambert’s face with an expression of ex- 
cited malevolence, his eyes glittering in the fire- 
light, his nostrils flaring as if he drew exhilara- 
tion with every breath. He betrayed more of 
their intentions than Kerr had discovered in his 
words; so much, indeed, that Lambert’s heart 
seemed to gush its blood and fall empty and 
cold. 

Lambert forgot his throbbing head and tor- 
tured feet, and hands gorged with blood to the 
strain of bursting below his tight-drawn bonds. 
The realization of his hopeless situation rushed 
on him; he looked round him to seize eveij the 
232 


WOLVES OF THE RANGE 


most doubtful opening tnat might lead him out 
of their hands. 

There was no chance. He could not wheel 
his horse without hand on rein, no matter how 
well the willing beast obeyed the pressure of his 
knees while galloping in the open field. 

He believed they intended to kill him and 
throw his body in the fire. Old Nick Hargus 
and his son had it in their power at last to take 
satisfaction for the humiliation to which he had 
bent them. A thousand regrets for his simplic- 
ity in falling into their trap came prickling him 
with their momentary torture, succeeded by 
wild gropings, frantic seekings, for some plan 
to get away. 

He had no thought of making an appeal to 
them, no consideration of a surrender of his 
manhood by giving his promise to leave the 
country if they would set him free. He was 
afraid, as any healthy human is afraid when he 
stands before a danger that he can neither de- 
fend against nor assail. Sweat burst out on 
him; his heart labored and heaved in heavy 
strokes. 

Whatever was passing in his mind, no trace 
233 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


of it was betrayed in bis bearing. He sat stiff 
and erect, the red glow of the intense fire on 
his face. His hat-brim was pressed back as the 
wind had held it in his ride, the scar of Jim 
Wilder’s knife a shadow adding to the grim 
strength of his lean face. His bound arms drew 
his shoulders back, giving him a defiant pose. 

‘ ‘ Take him out there and head him the right 
way, boys, ’ ’ Kerr directed. 

Tom Hargus rode ahead, leading Whetstone 
by the reins. Kerr was not following. At Lam- 
bert’s last sight of him he was still looking into 
the fire, as if fascinated by the sight of it. 

A hundred yards or less from the fire they 
stopped. Tom Hargus turned Whetstone to 
face back the way they had come, threw the 
reins over the saddle-horn, rode up so close 
Lambert could feel his breath in his face. 

‘‘You made me brush off a nigger’s hat 
when you had the drop on me, and carry a post 
five miles. That’s the shoulder I carried it 
on! ” 

He drove his knife into Lambert’s right 
shoulder with the words. The steel grated on 
bone. 


234 


WOLVES OF THE RANGE 


I brushed a nigger off under your gun one 
time/’ said old Nick Hargus, spurring up on 
the other side. Now I’ll brush you a little ! ” 

Lambert felt the hot streak of a knife-blade 
in the thick muscle of his back. Almost at the 
same moment his horse leaped forward so sud- 
denly that it wrenched every joint in his bound, 
stiff body, squealing in pain. He knew that one 
of them had plunged a knife in the animal’s- 
haunch. There was loud laughter, the sudden 
rushing of hooves, yells, and curses as they 
came after him. 

But no shots. For a moment Lambert hoped 
that they were to content themselves with the 
tortures already inflicted and let him go, to find 
his way out to help or perish in his bonds, as it 
might fall. For a moment only, this hope. 
They came pressing after him, heading his 
horse directly toward the fire. He struggled to 
bring pressure to old Whetstone’s ribs in the 
signal ^that he had answered a thousand times, 
but he was bound so rigidly that his muscles 
only twitched on the bone. 

Whetstone galloped on, mad in the pain of his 
wound, heading straight toward the fire. 

235 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Lambert believed, as those who urged him on 
toward it believed, that no horseman ever rode 
could jump that fiery gorge. On the brink of 
it his pursuers would stop, while he, powerless 
to check or turn his horse, would plunge over to 
perish in his bonds, smothered under his strug- 
gling beast, pierced by the transcendent agonies 
of fire. 

This was the last thought that rose coherently 
out of the turmoil of his senses as the firepit 
opened before his eyes. He heard his horse 
squeal again in the pain of another knife thrust 
to madden it to its destructive leap. Then a 
swirl of the confused senses as of released wa- 
ters, the lift of his horse as it sprang, the heat 
of the fire in his face. 

The healthy human mind recoils from death, 
and there is no agency among the destructive 
forces of nature which threatens with so much 
terror as fire. The senses disband in panic be- 
fore it, reason flees, the voice appeals in its dis- 
tress with a note that vibrates horror. In the 
threat of death by fire, man descends to his 
primal levels ; his tongue speaks again the uni- 
versal language, its note lending its horrified 
236 


WOLVES OF THE RANGE 


thrill to the lowest thing that moves by the di- 
vine force of life. 

As Lambert hung over the fire in that mighty 
leap, his soul recoiled. His strength rushed 
into one great cry, which still tore at his throat 
as his horse struck, racking him with a force 
that seemed to tear him joint from joint. 

The shock of this landing gathered his dis- 
persed faculties. There was fire around him, 
there was smoke in his nostrils, but he was alive. 
His horse was on its feet, struggling to scram- 
ble up the bank on which it had landed, the 
earth breaking under its hinder hoofs, threaten- 
ing to precipitate it back into the fire that its 
tremendous leap had cleared. 


237 


CHAPTEE XVI 


WHETSTONE COMES HOME 

L AMBEET saw tlie fire leaping around him, 
/ hut felt no sting of its touch, keyed as he 
was in that swift moment of adjustment. From 
a man as dead he was transformed in a breath 
hack to a living, panting, hoping, struggling be- 
ing, strong in the tenacious purpose of life. He 
leaned over his horse’s neck, shouting encour- 
agement, speaking endearments to it as to a 
woman in travail. 

There was silence on the bank behind him. 
Amazement over the leap that had carried 
Whetstone across the place which they had de- 
signed for the grave of both man and horse, 
held the four scoundrels breathless for a spell. 
Fascinated by the heroic animal ’s fight to draw 
himself clear of the fire which wrapped his 
hinder quarters, they forgot to shoot. 

A heave, a lurching struggle, a groan as if his 
heart burst in the terrific strain, and Whetstone 
238 


WHETSTONE COMES HOME 

lunged up the bank, staggered from his knees, 
snorted the smoke out of his nostrils, gathered 
his feet under him, and was away like a bullet. 
The sound of shots broke from, the bank across 
the fiery crevasse ; bullets came so close to Lam- 
bert that he lay flat against his horse’s neck. 

As the gallant creature ran, sensible of his re- 
sponsibilities for his master’s life, it seemed, 
Lambert spoke to him encouragingly, proud 
of the tremendous thing that he had done. 
There was no sound of pursuit, but the shoot- 
ing had stopped. Lambert knew they would 
follow as quickly as they could ride round the 
field of fire. 

After going to this length, they could not al- 
low him to escape. There would have been 
nothing to explain to any living man with him 
and all trace of him obliterated in the fire, but 
with him alive and fleeing, saved by the winged 
leap of his splendid horse, they would be called 
to answer, man by man. 

Whetstone did not appear to be badly hurt. 
He was stretching away like a hare, shaping his 
course toward the ranch as true as a pigeon. 
If they overtook him they would have to rido 
239 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


harder than they ever rode in their profitless 
lives before. 

Lambert estimated the distance between the 
place where they had trapped him and the fire 
as fifteen miles. It must be nine or ten miles 
across to the Philbrook ranch, in the straightest 
line that a horse could follow, and from that 
point many miles more to the ranchhouse and 
release from his stifling ropes. The fence would 
be no security against his pursuing enemies, but 
it would look like the boundary of hope. 

Whether they lost so much time in getting 
around the fire that they missed him, or whether 
they gave it up after a trial of speed against 
Whetstone, Lambert never knew. He supposed 
that their belief was that neither man nor horse 
would live to come into the sight of men again. 
However it fell, they did not approach within 
hearing if they followed, and were not in sight 
as dawn broke and broadened into day. 

Whetstone made the fence without slackening 
his speed. There Lambert checked him with a 
word and looked back for his enemies. Finding 
that they were not near, he proceeded along the 
fence at easier gait, holding the animaPs 
240 


WHETSTONE COMES HOME 


strength for the final heat, if they should make 
a sudden appearance. Somewhere along that 
miserable ride, after daylight had broken and 
the pieced wire that Grace Kerr had cut had 
been passed, Lambert fell unconscious across 
the horn of his saddle from the drain of blood 
from his wounds and the unendurable pain of 
his bonds. 

In this manner the horse came bearing him 
home at sunrise. Taterleg was away on his 
beat, not uneasy over Lambert’s absence. It 
was the exception for him to spend a night in 
the bunkhouse in that summer weather. So old 
Whetstone, jaded, scorched, bloody from his 
own and his master’s wounds, was obliged to 
stand at the gate and whinny for help when he 
arrived. 

It was hours afterward that the fence rider 
opened his eyes and saw Vesta Philbrook, and 
closed them again, believing it was a delirium 
of his pain. Then Taterleg spoke on the other 
side of the bed, and he knew that he had come 
through his perils into gentle hands. 

How ’re you feelin’, old sport ? ” Taterleg 
inquired with anxious tenderness. 

241 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Lambert turned his head toward the voice 
and grinned a little, in the teeth-baring, hard- 
pulling way of a man who has withstood a great 
deal more than the human body and mind ever 
were designed to undergo. He thought he spoke 
to Taterleg ; the words shaped on his tongue, his 
throat moved. But there was such a roaring in 
his ears, like the sound of a train crossing a 
trestle, that he could not hear his own voice. 

‘‘ Sure,’^ said Taterleg, hopefully, you’re 
all right, ain^’t you, old sport? ” 

Fine,” said Lambert, hearing his voice 
small and dry, strange as the voice of a man to 
him unknown. 

Vesta put her arm under his head, lifted him 
a little, gave him a swallow of water. It helped, 
or something helped. Perhaps it was the sym- 
pathetic tenderness of her good, honest eyes. 
He paid her with another little grin, which hurt 
her more to see than him to give, wrenched even 
though it was from the bottom of his soul. 

How’s old Whetstone? ” he asked, his voice 
coming clearer. 

He’s all right,” she told him. 

His tail’s burnt off of him, mostly, and he’s 
242 


WHETSTONE COMES HOME 


cut in the hams in a couple of places, but he 
ain’t hurj: any, as I can see,” Taterleg said, with 
more truth than diplomacy. 

Lambert struggled to his elbow, the con- 
sciousness of what seemed his ingratitude to 
this dumb savior of his life smiting him with 
shame. 

‘ ‘ I must go and attend to him, ’ ’ he said. 

Vesta and Taterleg laid hands on him at once. 

‘‘ You’ll bust them stitches I took in your 
back if you don’t keep still, young feller,” Ta- 
terleg warned. Whetstone ain’t as bad off as 
you, nor half as bad.” 

Lambert noticed then that his hands were 
wrapped in wet towels. 

Burned? ” he inquired, lifting his eyes to 
Vesta’s face. 

No, just swollen and inflamed. They’ll be 
all right in a little while. ’ ’ 

I blundered into their hands like a blind 
kitten,” said he, reproachfully. 

They’ll eat lead for it! ” said Taterleg. 

‘‘ It was Kerr and that gang,” Lambert ex- 
plained, not wanting to leave any doubt behind 
if he should have to go. 

243 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


You can tell us after a while/’ she said, 
with compassionate tenderness. 

Sure,” said Taterleg, cheerfully, you lay 
back there and take it easy. ITl keep my eye 
on things.” 

That evening, when the pain had eased out of 
his head, Lambert told Yesta what he had gone 
through, sparing nothing of the curiosity that 
had led him, like a calf, into their hands. He 
passed briefly over their attempt to herd him 
into the fire, except to give Whetstone the 
hero’s part, as he so well deserved. 

Vesta sat beside him, hearing him to the end 
of the brief recital that he made of it in silence, 
her face white, her figure erect. When he fin- 
ished she laid her hand on his forehead, as if in 
tribute to the manhood that had borne him 
through such inhuman torture, and the loyalty 
that had been the cause of its visitation. Then 
she went to the window, where she stood a long 
time looking over the sad sweep of broken coun- 
try, the fringe of twilight on it in somber 
shadow. 

It was not so dark when she returned to her 
place at his bedside, but he could see that she 
244 


WHETSTONE COMES HOME 


had been weeping in the silent pain that rises 
like a poison distillation from the heart. 

It draws the best into it and breaks them,” 
she said in great bitterness, speaking as to her- 
self. ‘ ‘ It isn ’t worth the price ! ’ ’ 

Never mind it, Vesta,” he soothed, putting 
out his hand. She took it between her own, and 
held it, and a great comfort came to him in her 
touch. 

I»m going to sell the cattle as fast as I can 
move them, and give it up, Duke,” she said, 
calling him by that name with the easy uncon- 
sciousness of a familiar habit, although she 
never had addressed him so before. 

You^re not going away from here whipped, 
Vesta,” he said with a firmness that gave new 
hope and courage to her sad heart. “ Ifil be out 
of this in a day or two, then we ^11 see about it — 
about several things. You^re not going to leave 
this country whipped; neither am I.” 

She sat in meditation, her face to the win- 
dow, presenting the soft turn of her cheek and 
chin to Lambert’s view. She was too fine and 
good for that country, he thought, too good for 
the best that it ever could offer or give, no mat- 
245 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


ter how generously the future might atone for 
the hardships of the past. It would he better 
for her to leave it, he wanted her to leave it, but 
not with her handsome head bowed in defeat. 

‘‘ I think if you were to sift the earth and 
screen out its meanest, they wouldn’t be a match 
for the people around here,” she said. There 
wouldn ’t be a bit of use taking this outrage up 
with the authorities ; Kerr and his gang would 
say it was a joke, and get away with it, too.” 

I wouldn’t go squealing to the county au- 
thorities, Vesta, even if I knew I’d get results. 
This is something a man has to square for him- 
self. Maybe they intended it for a joke, too, but 
it was a little rougher than I ’m used to. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ There ’s no doubt what their intention was. 
You can understand my feelings toward them 
now, Duke ; maybe I’ll not seem such a savage./’ 
I’ve got a case with you against them all, 
Vesta.” 

He made no mental reservation as he spoke ; 
there was no pleading for exception in Grace 
Kerr’s dark eyes that he could grant. Long 
as he had nestled the romance between them in 
his breast, long as he had looked into the West 
246 


WHETSTONE COMES HOME 


and sent his dream out after her, he could not, 
in this sore hour, forgive her the taint of her 
blood. 

He felt that all tenderness in him toward any 
of her name was dead. It had been a pretty 
fancy to hold, that thought of finding her, but 
she was only swamp-fire that had lured him to 
the door of hell. Still the marvel of his meet- 
ing her, the violet scent of his old dream, lin- 
gered sweetly with him like the perfume that 
remains after a beautiful woman whose pres- 
ence has illuminated a room. So hard does ro- 
mance die. 

I think Idl have to break my word to you 
and buckle on my gun again for a little while,’* 
she said. Mr. Wilson can’t ride the fence 
alone, capable and willing as he is, and ready 
to go day and night.” 

Leave it to him till I’m out again, Vesta; 
that will only be a day or two ” 

‘‘A day or two ! Three or four weeks, if you 
do well. ’ ’ 

‘‘ No, not that long, not anything like that 
long,” he denied with certainty. “ They didn’t 
hurt me very much. ’ ’ 


247 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


‘‘ Well, if they didn’t hurt you much they 
damaged you considerably. ” 

He grinned over the serious distinction that 
she made between the words. Then he thought, 
pleasantly, that Vesta’s voice seemed fitted to 
her lips like the tone of some beautiful instru- 
ment. It was even and soft, slow and soothing, 
as her manner was deliberate and well calcu- 
lated, her presence a comfort to the eye and the 
mind alike. 

An exceptional combination of a girl, he re- 
flected, speculating on what sort of man would 
marry her. Whoever he was, whatever he 
might be, he would be only secondary to her 
all through the compact. That chap would 
come walking a little way behind her all the 
time, with a contented eye and a certain pride 
in his situation. It was a diverting fancy as 
he lay there in the darkening room, Vesta com- 
ing down the years a strong, handsome, proud 
figure in the foreground, that man just far 
enough behind her to give the impression as he 
passed that he belonged to her entourage, but 
never quite overtaking her. 

Even so, the world might well envy the man 
248 


WHETSTONE COMES HOME 


his position. Still, if a man should happen 
along who could take the lead — but Vesta 
wouldn’t have him; she wouldn’t surrender. It 
might cost her pain to go her way with her 
pretty head up, her eyes on the road far beyond, 
but she would go alone and hide her pain rather 
than surrender. That would be Vesta Phil- 
hrook’s way. 

Myrtle, the negro woman, came in with 
chicken broth. Vesta made a light for him to 
sup by, protesting when he would sit up to help 
himself, the spoon impalpable in his numb fin- 
gers, still swollen and purple from the long con- 
striction of his bonds. 

Next morning Vesta came in arrayed in her 
riding habit, her sombrero on, as she had ap- 
peared the first time he saw her. Only she was 
so much lovelier now, with the light of friend- 
ship and tender concern in her face, that he was 
gladdened by her presence in the door. It was 
as of a sudden burst of music, or the voice of 
someone for whom the heart is sick. 

He was perfectly fine, he told her, although 
he was as sore as a bum. In about two days 
he would be in the saddle again; she didn’t 
249 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


need to bother about riding fence, it would be 
all right, he knew. His declaration didn^t carry 
assurance. He could see that by the changing 
cast of her face, as sensitive as still water to a 
breathing wind. 

She was wearing her pistol, and appeared 
very competent with it on her hip, and very 
high-bred and above that station of contention 
and strife. He was troubled not a little at 
sight of her thus prepared to take up the battles 
which she had renounced and surrendered into 
his hands only yesterday. She must have read 
it in his eyes. 

I^m only going to watch the fence and re- 
pair it to keep the cattle in if they cut it,’’ she 
said. ‘‘ I’ll not take the offensive, even if I 
see her — them cutting it; I’ll only act on the 
defensive, in any case. I promise you that, 
Duke. ’ ’ 

She left him with that promise, before he 
could commend her on the wisdom of her reso- 
lution, or set her right on the matter of Grace 
Kerr. From the way Vesta spoke, a man would 
think she believed he had some tender feeling 
for that wild girl, and the idea of it was so 
250 


WHETSTONE COMES HOME 


preposterous that he felt his face grow hot. 

He was uneasy for Vesta that day, in spite 
of her promise to avoid trouble, and fretted a 
good deal over his incapacitated state. His 
shoulder burned where Tom Hargus ’ knife had 
scraped the hone, his wounded back was stiff. 

Without this bodily suffering he would have 
been miserable, for he had the sweat of his hu- 
miliation to wallow in, the black cloud of his 
contemplated vengeance across his mind in 
ever-deepening shadow. On his day of reckon- 
ing he cogitated long, planning how he was to 
bring it about. The law would not justify him 
in going out to seek these men and shooting 
them down where overtaken. Time and circum- 
stance must be ready to his hand before he 
could strike and wipe out that disgraceful 
score. 

It was not to be believed that they would al- 
low the matter to stand where it was ; that was a 
comforting thought. They would seek occasion 
to renew the trouble, and push it to their de- 
sired conclusion. That was the day to which he 
looked forward in hot eagerness. Never again 
would he be taken like a rabbit in a trap. He 
^ 251 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


felt that, to stand clear before the law, he would 
have to wait for them to push their fight on 
him, but he vowed they never would find him 
unprepared, asleep or awake, under roof or 
under sky. 

He would get Taterleg to oil up a pair of pis- 
tols from among the number around the bunk- 
house and leave them with him that night. 
There was satisfaction in the anticipation of 
these preparations. Dwelling on them he fell 
asleep. He woke late in the afternoon, when 
the sun was yellow on the wall, the shadow of 
the cottonwood leaves quivering like dragon- 
flies’ wings. 

On the little table beside his bed, near his 
glass, a bit of white paper lay. He looked at it 
curiously. It bore writing in ink and marks 
as of a pin. 

Jmt to say hello, Duke. 

That was the message, unsigned, folded as it 
had been pinned to the wire. Vesta had brought 
it and left it there while he slept. 

He drew himself up with stiff carefulness 
and read it again, holding it in his fingers then 
252 


WHETSTONE COMES HOME 


and gazing in abstraction out of the window, 
through which he could pick up the landscape 
across the river, missing the brink of the mesa 
entirely. 

A softness, as of the rebirth of his old 
romance, swept him, submerging the bitter 
thoughts and vengeful plans which had been his 
but a few hours before, the lees of which were 
still heavy in him. This little piece of writing 
proved that Grace was innocent of anything 
that had befallen him. In the friendly good- 
will of her heart she thought him, as she doubt- 
less wished him, unharmed and well. 

There was something in that girl better than 
her connections would seem to guarantee; she 
was not intractable, she was not beyond the 
influence of generosity, nor deaf to the argu- 
ment of honor. It would be unfair to hold her 
birth and relationship against her. Nobility 
had sprung out of baseness many times in the 
painful history of human progress. If she 
was vengeful and vindictive, it was what the 
country had made her. She should not be 
judged for this in measure harsher than Vesta 
Philbrook should be judged. The acts of both 
253 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


’ss^ere controlled by what they believed to be the 
right. 

Perhaps, and who knows, and why not? So, 
a train of dreams starting and blowing from 
him, like smoke from a censer, perfumed smoke, 
purging the place of demons which confuse the 
lines of men’s and women’s lives and set them 
counter where they should go in amity, warm 
hand in warm hand, side by side. 


254 


CHAPTER XVII 

HOW THICK IS BLOOD? 

N O STERNER figure ever rode the Bad 
Lands than Jeremiah Lambert appeared 
eight days after his escape out of his enemies ’ 
hands. The last five days of his internment he 
had spent in his own quarters, protesting to 
Vesta that he was no longer an invalid, and that 
further receipt of her tender ministrations 
would amount to obtaining a valuable consider- 
ation by false pretense. 

This morning as he rode about his duty the 
scar left by Jim Wilder ^s knife in his cheek 
never had appeared so prominent. It cast over 
all his face a shadow of grimness, and imparted 
to it an aged and seasoned appearance not war- 
ranted by either his experience or his years. 
Although he had not carried any superfluous 
flesh before his night of torture, he was lighter 
now by many pounds. 

Not a handsome man that day, not much about 
255 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


him to recall the red-faced, full-blooded agent 
of the All-in-One who had pushed his bicycle 
into the Syndicate camp that night, guided by 
Taterleg’s song. But there was a look of con- 
fidence in his eyes that had not been his in 
those days, which he considered now as far 
distant and embryonic; there was a certainty 
in his hand that made him a man in a man’s 
place anywhere in the extreme exactions of 
that land. 

Vesta was firm in her intention of giving up 
the ranch and leaving the Bad Lands as soon 
as she could sell the cattle. With that program 
ahead of him, Lambert was going this morning 
to look over the herd and estimate the number 
of cattle ready for market, that he might place 
his order for oars. 

He didn’t question the wisdom of reducing 
the herd, for that was good business ; but it hurt 
him to have Vesta leave there with drooping 
feathers, acknowledging to the brutal forces 
which had opposed the ranch so long that she 
was beaten. He would have her go after vic- 
tory over them, for it was no place for Vesta. 
But he would like for her to stay until he had 
256 


HOW THICK IS BLOOD? 


broken their opposition, and compelled them to 
take off their hats to her fence. 

He swore as he rode this morning that he 
would do it. Vesta should not clean out the 
cattle, lock the lonesome ranchhouse, abandon 
the barns and that vast investment of money to 
the skulking wolves who waited only such a re- 
treat to sneak in and despoil the place. He had 
fixed in his mind the intention, firm as a rock in 
the desert that defied storm and disintegration, 
to bring every man of that gang up to the wire 
fence in his turn and bend him before it, or 
break him if he would not bend. 

This accomplished, the right of the fence es- 
tablished on such terms that it would be re- 
spected evermore, Vesta might go, if she de- 
sired. Surely it would be better for her, a pearl 
in those dark waters where her beauty would 
corrode and her soul would suffer in the isola- 
tion too hard for one of her fine harmony to 
bear. Perhaps she would turn the ranch over to 
him to run, with a band of sheep which he could 
handle and increase on shares, after the custom 
of that business, to the profit of both. 

He had speculated on this eventuality not a 
257 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


little during the days of his enforced idleness. 
This morning the thought was so strong in him 
that it amounted almost to a plan. Maybe there 
was a face in these calculations, a face illumined 
by clear, dark eyes, which seemed to strain 
over the brink of the future and beckon him on. 
Blood might stand between them, and differ- 
ences almost irreconcilable, but the face with- 
drew never. 

It was evening before he worked through the 
herd and made it round to the place where 
Grace Kerr had cut the fence. There was no 
message for him. Without foundation for his 
disappointment, he was disappointed. He 
wondered if she had been there, and bent in his 
saddle to examine the ground across the fence. 

There were tracks of a horse, but whether old 
or new he was not educated enough yet in range- 
craft to tell. He looked toward the hill from 
which he had watched her ride to cut the fence, 
hoping she might appear. He knew that this 
hope was traitorous to his employer, he felt that 
his desire toward this girl was unworthy, but 
he wanted to see her and hear her speak. 

A 

Foolish, also, to yield to that desire to let 
258 


HOW THICK IS BLOOD? 


down the fence where he had hooked the wire 
and ride out to see if he could find her. Still, 
there was so little probability of seeing her that 
he was not ashamed, only for the twinge of a 
disloyal act, as he rode toward the hill, his long 
shadow ambling beside him, a giant horseman 
on a mammoth steed. 

He returned from this little sentimental ex- 
- cursion feeling somewhat like a sneak. The 
country was empty of Grace Kerr. In going out 
to seek her in the folly of a romance too trivial 
for a man of his serious mien, he was guilty of 
an iudiscretion deserving Vesta Philbrook^s 
deepest scorn. He burned with his own shame 
as he dismounted to adjust the wire, like one 
caught in a reprehensible deed, and rode home 
feeling foolishly small. Kerr ! He should hate 
the name. 

But when he came to shaving by lamplight 
that night, and lifted out his pied calfskin vest 
to find his strop, the little handkerchief brought 
all the old remembrances, the old tenderness, 
back in a sentimental flood. He fancied there 
was still a fragrance of violet perfume about it 
as he held it tenderly and pressed it to his 
259 


. THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


cheek after a furtive glance around. He folded 
it small, put it in a pocket of the garment, which 
he hung on the foot of his bed. 

An inspiration directed the act. Tomorrow 
he would ride forth clothed in the calfskin vest, 
with the bright handkerchief that he had worn 
on the Sunday at Misery when he won Grace 
Kerris scented trophy. For sentimental rea- 
sons only; purely sentimental reasons. 

No, he was not a handsome man any longer, 
he confessed, grinning at the admission, rather 
pleased to have it as it was. That scar gave 
him a cast of ferocity which his heart did not 
warrant, for, inwardly, he said, he knew he was 
as gentle as a dove. But if there was any doubt 
in her mind, granted that he had changed a good 
deal since she first saw him, the calfskin vest 
and the handkerchief would settle it. By those 
signs she would know him, if she had doubted 
before. 

Not that she had doubted. As her anger and 
fear of him had passed that morning, recogni- 
tion had come, and with recognition, confidence- 
He would take a look out that way in the morn- 
ing. Surely a man had a right to go into the 
260 


HOW THICK IS BLOOD? 


enemy country and get a line on what was 
going on against him. So as he shaved he 
planned, arguing loudly for himself to drown 
the cry of treason that his conscience raised. 

Tomorrow he would take a further look 
through the herd and conclude his estimate. 
Then he’d have to go to Glendora and order 
cars for the first shipment. Vesta wouldn’t be 
able to get all of them off for many weeks. It 
would mean several trips to Chicago for him, 
with a crew of men to take care of the cattle 
along the road. It might be well along into the 
early fall before he had them thinned down to 
calves and cows not ready for market. 

He shaved and smoothed his weathered face, 
turning his eyes now and again to his hairy vest 
with a feeling of affection in him for the gar- 
ment that neither its worth nor its beauty war- 
ranted. Sentimental reasons always outweigh 
sensible ones as long as a man is young. 

He rode along the fence next morning on his 
way to the herd, debating whether he should 
leave a note on the wire. He was not in such 
a soft and sentimental mood this morning, for 
sense had rallied to him and pointed out the im- 
261 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


possibility of harmony between himself and one 
so nearly related to a man who had attempted 
to burn him alive. It seemed to him now that 
the recollection of those poignant moments 
would rise to stand between them, no matter 
how gentle or far removed from the source of 
her being she might appear. 

These gloomy speculations rose and left him 
like a flock of somber birds as he lifted the 
slope. Grace Kerr herself was riding home- 
ward, just mounting the hill over which she 
must pass in a moment and disappear. He un- 
hooked the wire and rode after her. At the 
hilltop she stopped, unaware of his coming, 
and looked back. He waved his hat ; she waited. 

^ ‘ Have you been sick, Duke ? ’ ^ she inquired, 
after greetings, looking him over with con- 
cern. 

My horse bit me,’’ said he, passing it off 
with that old stock pleasantry of the range, 
which covered anything and everything that a 
man didn’t want to explain. 

“ I missed you along here,” she said. She 
swept him again with that slow, puzzled look of 
inquiry, her eyes coming back to his face in a 
262 


HOW THICK IS BLOOD? 


frank, unembarrassed stare. Oh, I know 
what it is now! You^re dressed like you were 
that day at Misery. I couldn^t make it out for 
a minute. ’ ’ 

She was not wearing her mannish garb this 
morning, but divided skirts of corduroy and a 
white waist with a bit of bright color at the 
neck. Her white sombrero was the only mascu- 
line touch about her, and that rather added to 
her quick, dark prettiness. 

‘‘You were wearing a white waist the first 
time I saw you, ^ ’ he said. 

“ This one,’^ she replied, touching it with 
simple motion of full identification. 

Neither of them mentioned the mutual 
recognition on the day she had been caught 
cutting the fence. They talked of commonplace 
things, as youth is constrained to do when its 
heart and mind are centered on something else 
which bums within it, the flame of which it can- 
not cover from any eyes but its own. Life on 
the range, its social disadvantages, its rough 
diversions, these they spoke of, Lambert’s lips 
dry with his eagerness to tell her more. 

How quickly it had laid hold of him again 
2^3 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


at sight of her, this unreasonable longing ! The 
perfume of his romance suffused her, purging 
away all that was unworthy. 

I trembled every second that day for fear 
your horse would break through the platform 
and throw you, ’ ^ she said, suddenly coming back 
to the subject that he wanted most to discuss. 

‘‘ I didn’t think of it till a good while after- 
ward,” he said in slow reflection. 

‘‘ I didn’t suppose I’d ever see you again, 
and, of course, I never once thought you were 
the famous Duke of Chimney Butte I heard so 
much about when I got home. ’ ’ 

‘‘ More notorious than famous, I’m afraid, 
Miss Kerr.” 

Jim Wilder used to work for us; I knew 
him well. ’ ’ 

Lambert bent his head, a shadow of deepest 
gravity falling like a cloud over the animation 
which had brightened his features but a moment 
before. He sat in contemplative silence a little 
while, his voice low when he spoke. 

** Even though he deserved it, I’ve always 
been sorry it happened. ’ ’ 

Well, if you’re sorry, I guess you’re the 
264 


HOW THICK IS BLOOD? 


only one. Jim was a bad kid. Whereas that 
horse you raced the train on ? ’ ’ 

I^m resting him up a little.’^ 

You had him out here the other day.’’ 

‘‘ Yes. I crippled him up a little since then.” 

‘‘I’d like to have that horse. Do you want 
to sell him, Duke ? ” 

“ There’s not money enough made to buy 
him! ” Lambert returned, lifting his head 
quickly, looking her in the eyes so directly that 
she colored, and turned her head to cover her 
confusion. 

“You must think a lot of him when you talk 
like that.” 

“ He’s done me more than one good turn. 
Miss Kerr,” he explained, feeling that she must 
have read his harsh thoughts. “ He saved my 
life only a week ago. But that’s likely to hap- 
pen to any man,” he added quickly, making 
light of it. 

“ Saved your life? ” said she, turning her 
clear, inquiring eyes on him again in that ex- 
pression of wonder that was so vast in them. 
“ How did he save your life, Duke? ” 

“ I guess I was just talking,” said he, wish- 
265 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


ing he had kept a better hold on his tongue. 
‘‘ You know we have a fool way of saying a 
man^s life was saved in very trivial things. I Ve 
known people to declare that a drink of whisky 
did that for them.’’ 

She lifted her brows as she studied his face 
openly and with such a directness that he 
flushed in confusion, then turned her eyes away 
slowly. 

I liked him that day he outran the flier; I’ve 
often thought of him since then. ’ ’ 

Lambert looked off over the wild landscape, 
the distant buttes softened in the haze that 
seemed to presage the advance of autumn, con- 
sidering much. When he looked into her face 
again it was with the harshness gone out of his 
eyes. 

I wouldn’t sell that horse to any man, but 
I’d give him to you, Grace.” 

She started a little when he pronounced her 
name, wondering, perhaps, how he knew it, her 
eyes growing great in the pleasure of his gener- 
ous declaration. She urged her horse nearer 
with an impetuous movement and gave him her 
hand. 


266 


HOW THICK IS BLOOD? 


‘‘ I didn’t mean for you to take it that way, 
Duke, but I appreciate it more than I can tell 
you. ’ ’ 

Her eyes were earnest and soft with a mist 
of gratitude that seemed to rise out of her heart. 
He held her hand a moment, feeling that he was 
being drawn nearer to her lips, as if he must 
touch them, and rise refreshed to face the labors 
of his life. 

I started out on him to look for you, ex- 
pecting to ride him to the Pacific, and maybe 
double back. I didn’t know where I’d have to 
go, but I intended to go on till I found you. ’ ’ 

It seemed almost a joke,” she said, that 
we were so near each other and you didn’t know 
it.” 

She laughed, not seeming to feel the serious- 
ness of it as he felt it. It is the woman who 
laughs always in these little life-comedies of 
ours. 

‘‘ I’ll give him to you, Grace, when he picks 
up again. Any other horse will do me now. He 
carried me to the end of my road; he brought 
me to you.” 

She turned her head, and he hadn’t the cour- 
267 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


age in him to look and see whether it was to 
hide a smile. 

‘‘You don’t know me, Duke; maybe you 
wouldn’t — maybe you’ll regret you ever 
started out to find me at all. ’ ’ 

His courage came up again ; he leaned a little 
nearer, laying his hand on hers where it rested 
on her saddle-horn. 

“You wanted me to come, didn’t you, 
Grace? ” 

‘ ‘ I hoped you might come sometime, Duke. ’ ’ 

He rode with her when she set out to return 
home to the little valley where he had inter- 
posed to prevent a tragedy between her and 
Vesta Philbrook. Neither of them spoke of that 
encounter. It was avoided in silence as a thing 
of which both were ashamed. 

“ Will you be over this way again, Grace? ” 
he asked when he stopped to part. 

“ I expect I will, Duke.” 

“ Tomorrow, do you think? ” 

“Not tomorrow,” shaking her head in the 
pretty way she had of doing it when she spoke 
in negation, like an earnest child. 

“ Maybe the next day? ” 

268 


HOW THICK IS BLOOD? 


‘‘ I expect I may come then, Duke — or what 
is your real name ? ^ ^ 

Jeremiah. Jerry, if you like it better.’^ 
She pursed her lips in comical seriousness, 
frowning a little as if considering it weightily. 
Then she looked at him in frank comradeship, 
her dark eyes serious, nodding her head. 

‘‘ Idl just call you Duke.^’ 

He left her with the feeling that he had known 
her many years. Blood between them? What 
was blood? Thicker than water? Nay, impal- 
pable as smoke. 


269 


CHAPTEE XVIII 

THE EIVALKY OF COOKS 

T ATEELEG said that he would go to Glen- 
dora that night with Lambert, when the 
latter announced he was going down to order 
cars for the first shipment of cattle. 

I’ve been layin’ otf to go quite a while,” 
Taterleg said, but that scrape you run into 
kind of held me around nights. You know, that 
feller he put a letter in the post office for me, 
servin’ notice I was to keep away from that 
girl. I guess he thinks he’s got me butfaloed 
and on the run.” 

Which one of them sent you a letter? ” 
Jedlick, dern him. I’m goin’ down there 
from now on every chance I get and set up to 
that girl like a Dutch uncle. ’ ’ 

“ What do you suppose Jedlick intends to do 
to you? ” 

‘‘ I don’t care what he aims to do. If he 
makes a break at me. I’ll lay him on a board, 
270 


THE RIVALRY OF COOKS 


if they can find one in the Bad Lands long 
enough to hold him/’ 

‘‘ He’s got a bad eye, a regular mule eye. 
You^d better step easy around him and not stir 
him up too quick. ’ ’ 

Lambert had no faith in the valor of Jedlick 
at all, but Taterleg would fight, as he very well 
knew. But he doubted whether there was any 
great chance of the two coming together with 
Alta Wood on the watch between them. She’d 
pat one and she’d rub the other, soothing them 
and drawing them off until they forgot their 
wrath. Still, he did not want Taterleg to be 
running any chance at all of making trouble. 

You^d better let me take your gun,” he 
suggested as they approached the hotel. 

‘ ‘ I can take care of it, ’ ’ Taterleg returned, a 
bit hurt by the suggestion, lofty and distant in 
his declaration. 

“ No harm intended, old feller. I just didn’t 
want you to go pepperin’ old Jedlick over a girl 
that^s as fickle as you say Alta Wood is.” 

I ain’t a-goin’ to pull a gun on no man till 
he gives me a good reason, Duke, but if he gives 
me the reason, I want to be heeled. I guess I 
271 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


was a little hard on Alta that time, because I 
was a little sore. She ^s not so foolish fickle as 
some.’’ 

‘ ‘ When she ’s trying to hold three men in line 
at once it looks to me she must be playin’ two 
of ’em for suckers. But go to it, go to it, old 
feller; don’t let me scare you off.” 

I never had but one little failin’ out with 
Alta, and that was the time I was sore. She 
wanted me to cut off my mustache, and I told 
her I wouldn’t do that for no girl that ever 
punched a piller.” 

What did she want you to do that for, do 
you reckon? ” 

“ Curiosity, Duke, plain curiosity. She 
worked old Jedlick that way, but she couldn’t 
throw me. Wanted to see how it’d change me, 
she said. Well, I know, without no experiment- 
in’.” 

I don’t know that it’d hurt you much to 
lose it, Taterleg.” 

“ Hurt me? I’d look like one of them flat 
Christmas toys they make out of tin without 
that mustache, Duke. I’d be so sharp in the 
face I’d whistle in the wind every time my horse 
272 


THE RIVALRY OF COOKS 


went out of a walk. I’m a-goin’ to wear that 
mustache to my grave, and no woman that ever 
hung her stockin’s out of the winder to dry’s 
goin’ to fool me into cuttin’ it off.” 

You know when you’re comfortable, old fel- 
ler. Stick to it, if that’s the way you feel about 
it.” 

They hitched at the hotel rack. Taterleg said 
he ’d go on to the depot with Lambert. 

‘‘I’m lookin’ for a package of express goods 
I sent away to Chicago for, ’ ’ he explained. 

The package was on hand, according to ex- 
pectation. It proved to be a five-pound box of 
chewing gum, “All kinds and all flavors,” 
Taterleg said. 

“ You’ve got enough there to stick you to her 
so tight. that even death can’t part you,” Lam- 
bert told him. 

Taterleg winked as he worked undoing the 
cords. 

“Only thing can beat it, Duke — money. 
Money can beat it, but a man’s got to have a 
lick or two of common sense to go with it, and 
some good looks on the side, if he picks off a 
girl as wise as Alta. When Jedlick was weak 
273 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


enough to cut off his mustache, he killed his 
chance. ^ ^ 

‘ ‘ Is he in town tonight, do you reckon ? ’ ’ 

I seen his horse in front of the saloon. 
Well, no girl can say I ever went and set down 
by her smellin* like a bunghole on a hot day. I 
don’t travel that road. I’ll go over there smell- 
in’ like a fruit-store, and I’ll put that box in 
her hand and tell her to chaw tiU she goes to 
sleep, an then I’ll pull her head over on my 
shoulder and pat them bangs. Hursh, oh, 
hursh! ” 

It seemed that the effervescent fellow could 
not be wholly serious about anything. Lambert 
was not certain that he was serious in his atti- 
tude toward Jedlick as he went away with his 
sweet-scented box under his arm. 

By the time Lambert had finished his arrange- 
ments for a special train to carry the first heavy 
shipment of the Philbrook herd to market it was 
long after dark. He was in the post office when 
he heard the shot that, he feared, opened hos- 
tilities between Taterleg and Jedlick. He hur- 
ried out with the rest of the customers and went 
toward the hotel. 


274 


THE RIVALRY OF COOKS 


There was some commotion on the hotel 
porch, which it was too dark to follow, hut he 
heard Alta scream, after which there came an- 
other shot. The bullet struck the side of the 
store, high above Lambert’s head. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE SENTINEL 


HERE appeared in the light of the hotel 



X door for a moment the figures of strug- 
gling men, followed by the sound of feet in flight 
down the steps, and somebody mounting a horse 
in haste at the hotel hitching-rack. Whoever 
this was rode away at a hard gallop. 

Lambert knew that the battle was over, and 
as he came to the hitching-rack he saw that 
Taterleg’s horse was still there. So he had not 
fled. Several voices sounded from the porch in 
excited talk, among them Taterleg’s, proving 
that he was sound and untouched. 

His uneasiness gone, Lambert stood a little 
while in front, well out in the dark, trying to 
pick up what was being said, but with little re- 
sult, for people were arriving with noise of 
heavy boots to learn the cause of the disturb- 
ance. 

Taterleg held the floor for a little while, his 


276 


THE SENTINEL 


voice severe as if he laid down the law. Alta 
replied in what appeared to be indignant pro- 
test, then fell to crying. There was a picture 
of her in the door a moment being led inside by 
her mother, blubbering into her hands. The 
door slammed after them, and Taterleg was 
heard to say in loud, firm voice : 

DonT approach me, I tell you! I’d hit a 
blind woman as quick as I would a one-armed 
man! ” 

Lambert felt that thiB was the place to inter- 
fere. He called Taterleg. 

^‘All right, Duke; I’m a-comin’,” Taterleg 
answ^ered. 

The door opened, revealing the one-armed 
proprietor entering the house ; revealing a 
group of men and women, bare-headed, as they 
had rushed to the hotel at the sound of the 
shooting ; revealing Taterleg coming down the 
steps, his box of chewing gum under his arm. 

Wood fastened the door back in its accus- 
tomed anchorage. His neighbors closed round 
where he stood explaining the affair, his stump 
of arm lifting and pointing in the expression- 
less gestures common to a man thus maimed. 

277 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


‘‘Are you hurt? Lambert inquired. 

“ No, I ain’t hurt none, Duke.” 

Taterleg got aboard of his horse with noth- 
ing more asked of him or volunteered on his 
part. They had not proceeded far when his in- 
dignation broke bounds. 

“ I ain’t hurt, but I’m swinged like a fool 
miller moth in a lamp chimley, ’ ’ he complained. 

“ Who was that shootin’ around so darned 
careless? ” 

“ Jedlick, dern him! ” 

“ It’s a wonder he didn’t kill somebody up- 
stairs somewhere.” 

‘ ‘ First shot he hit a box of t ’backer back of 
Wood’s counter. I don’t know what he hit the 
second time, but it wasn’t me.” 

‘ ‘ He hit the side of the store. ’ ’ 

Taterleg rode along in silence a little way. 
“ Well, that was purty good for him,” he said. 

“ WTho was that hopped a horse like he was 
goin’ for the doctor, and tore off ? ” 

“ Jedlick, dern him! ” 

Lambert allowed the matter to rest at that, 
knowing that neither of them had been hurt. 
Taterleg would come to the telling of it before 
278 


THE SENTINEL 


long, not being built so that he could hold a piece 
of news like that without suffering great dis- 
comfort. ^ 

I^m through with that bunch down there, 
he said in the tone of deep, disgustful renun- 
ciation. “ I never was led on and soaked that 
way before in my life. No, I ain’t hurt, Duke, 
but it ain’t no fault of that girl I ain’t. She 
done all she could to kill me off.” 

‘‘ Who started it? ” 

‘‘ Well, I’ll give it to you straight, Duke, 
from the first word, and you can judge for your- 
self what kind of a woman that girl’s goin’ to 
turn out to be. I never would ’a’ believed she ’d 
’a’ thro wed a man that way, but you can’t read 
’em, Duke ; no man can read ’em. ’ ’ 

‘‘ I guess that’s right,” Lambert allowed, 
wondering how far he had read in certain dark 
eyes which seemed as innocent as a child’s. 

‘‘ It’s past the power of any man to do it. 
Well, you know, I went over there with my fresh 
box of gum, ail of the fruit flavors you can 
name, and me and her we set out on the porch 
gabbin’ and samplin’ that gum. She never was 
so loanin’ and lovin’ before, settin’ up so dost 
279 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


to me you couldn’t ’a’ put a sheet of writin’ 
paper between us. Shucks ! ’ ’ 

Rubhin’ the paint off, Taterleg. You ought 
’a’ took the tip that she was about done with 
you. ’ ’ 

‘‘ You’re right; I would ’a’ if I’d ’a’ had as 
much brains as a ant. Well, she told me Jedlick 
was layin’ for me, and begged me not to hurt 
him, for she didn’t want to see me go to jail on 
account of a feller like him. She talked to me 
like a Dutch uncle, and put her head so dost I 
could feel them bangs a ticklin’ my ear. But 
that ’s done with ; she can tickle all the ears she 
wants to tickle, but she’ll never tickle mine no 
more. And all the time she was talkin’ to me 
like that, where do you reckon that Jedlick fel- 
ler was at? ” 

In the saloon, I guess, firin’ up.” 

‘‘ No, he wasn’t, Duke. He was settin’ right 
in that /lo-tel, with his old flat feet under the 
table, shovelin’ in pie. He come out pickin’ his 
teeth purty soon, standin’ there by the door, 
dern him, like he owned the dump. Well, he 
may, for all I know. Alta she inched away 
from me, and she says to him: ‘ Mr. Jedlick, 
280 


THE SENTINEL 


come over here and shake hands with Mr. 
Wilson.’ 

‘ Yes,’ he says, ‘ I’ll shake insect powder 
on his grave ! ’ 

^ I see you doin’ it,’ I says, ‘ you long- 
hungry and half-full ! If you ever make a pass 
at me you’ll swailer wind so fast you’ll bust.’ 
Well, he begun to shuffle and prance and cut up 
like a boy makin’ faces, and there’s where Alta 
she ducked in through the parlor winder. 
* Don’t hurt him, Mr. Jedlick,’ she says; 
‘ please don’t hurt him! ’ 

‘ I’ll chaw him up as fine as cat hair and 
blow him out through my teeth,’ Jedlick told 
her. And there ’s where I started after that fel- 
ler. He was standin’ in front of the door all 
the time, where he could duck inside if he saw 
me cornin’, and I guess he would ’a’ ducked if 
Wood hadn’t ’a’ been there. When he saw 
Wood, old Jedlick pulled his gun. 

I slung down on him time enough to blow 
him in two, and pulled on my trigger, not aim- 
in ’ to hurt the old sooner, only to snap a bullet 
between his toes, but she wouldn’t work. Old 
Jedlick he was so rattled at the sight of that 
281 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


gnn in my hand he banged loose, slap through 
the winder into that box of plug back df the 
counter. I pulled on her and pulled on her, but 
she wouldn’t snap, and I was yankin’ at the 
hammer to cock her when he tore loose with 
that second shot. That ’s when I found out what 
the matter was with that old gun of mine. ’ ’ 
Taterleg was so moved at this passage that 
he seemed to run out of words. He rode along 
in silence until they reached the top of the hill, 
and the house on the mesa stood before them, 
dark and lonesome. Then he pulled out his gun 
and handed it across to the Duke. 

Run your thumb over the hammer of that 
gun, Duke,” he said. 

Well! What in the world — it feels like 
chewin’ gum, Taterleg.” 

‘‘ It chewin’ gum, Duke. A wad of it as 
big as my fist gluin’ down the hammer of that 
gun. That girl put it on there, Duke, She knew 
Jedlick wouldn’t have no more show before 
me, man to man, than a rabbit. She done me 
that trick, Duke; she wanted to kill me off.” 

There wasn’t no joke about that, old fel- 
ler,” the Duke said seriously, grateful that the 
282 


THE SENTINEL 


girl trick had not resulted in any greater dam- 
age to his friend than the shock to his dignity 
and simple heart. 

Yes, and it was my own gum. That^s the 
worst part of it, Duke; she wasn’t even usin’ 
his gum, dang her melts ! ” 

‘‘ She must have favored Jedlick pretty 
strong to go that far. ’ ’ 

‘‘ Well, if she wants him after what she’s 
saw of him, she can take him. I clinched him 
before he could waste any more ammunition, 
and twisted his gun away from him. I jolted 
him a couple of jolts with my fist, and he broke 
and run. You seen him hop his horse.” 

‘‘ What did you do with his gun? ” 

‘ ^ I walked over to the winder where that girl 
was lookin ’ out to see J edlick wipe up the porch 
with me, and I handed her the gun, and I says : 
‘ Give this to Mr. Jedlick with my regards,’ I 
says, ^ and tell him if he wants any more to send 
me word.’ Well, she come out, and I called her 
on what she done to my gun. She swore she 
didn’t mean it for nothin’ but a joke. I said 
if that was her idear of a joke, the quicker we 
parted the sooner. She began to bawl, and the 
283 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


old man and old woman put in, and I’d ’a’ 
slapped that feller, Duke, if he’d ’a’ had two 
arms on him. But you can’t slap a half of a 
man. ’ ’ 

‘‘ I guess that’s right.” 

I walked up to that girl, and I said: 
* You’ve chawed the last wad of my gum you’ll 
ever plaster up ag’in’ your old lean jawbone. 
You may be some figger in Glendora,’ I says, 
^ but anywheres else you wouldn’t cut no more 
ice than a cracker.’ Wood he took it up ag’in. 
That’s when I come away.” 

It looks like it’s all off between you and 
Alta now.” 

‘‘ Broke off, short up to the handle. Serves 
a feller right for bein’ a fool. I might ’a’ 
knowed when she wanted me to shave my mus- 
tache off she didn’t have no more heart in her 
than a fish. ’ ’ 

‘‘ That was askin’ a lot of a man, sure as the 
world.” 

No man can look two ways at once 
without somebody puttin’ something down his 
back, Duke. ’ ’ 

Eef errin’ to the lady in Wyoming. Sure.” 

284 


THE SENTINEL 


She was white. She says: ‘ Mr. Wilson, 
ITl always think of you as a gentleman.' Them 
was her last words, Duke." 

They were walking their horses past the 
house, which was dark, careful not to wake 
Vesta. But their care went for nothing; she 
was not in bed. Around the turn of the long 
porch they saw her standing in the moonlight, 
looking across the river into the lonely night. 
It seemed as if she stood in communion with 
distant places, to which she sent her longing 
out of a bondage that she could not flee. 

She looks lonesome," Taterleg said. 
“ Well, I ain't a-goin' to go and pet and console 
her. I'm done takin' chances." 

Lambert understood as never before how 
melancholy that life must be for her. She 
turned as they passed, her face clear in the 
bright moonlight. Taterleg swept off his hat 
with the grand air that took him so far with the 
ladies, Lambert saluting with less extravagance. 

Vesta waved her hand in acknowledgment, 
turning again to her watching over the vast, 
empty land, as if she waited the coming of 
somebody who would quicken her life with the 
285 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


cheer that it wanted so sadly that calm summer 
night. 

Lambert felt an unusual restlessness that 
night — no mood over him for his bed. It 
seemed, in truth, that a man would be wasting 
valuable hours of life by locking his senses up 
in sleep. He put his horse away, sated with the 
comedy of Taterleg’s adventure, and not caring 
to pursue it further. To get away from the 
discussion of it that he knew Taterleg would 
keep going as long as there was an ear open to 
hear him, he walked to the near-by hilltop to 
view the land under this translating spell. 

This was the hilltop from which he had ridden 
down to interfere between Vesta and Nick Har- 
gus. With that adventure he had opened his 
account of trouble in the Bad Lands, an account 
that was growing day by day, the final balanc- 
ing of which he could not foresee. 

Prom where he stood, the house was dark and 
lonely as an abandoned habitation. It seemed, 
indeed, that bright and full of youthful light as 
Vesta Philbrook was, she was only one warm 
candle in the gloom of this great and melan- 
choly monument of her father’s misspent hopes. 

286 


THE SENTINEL 


Before she could warm it into life and cheerful- 
ness, it would encroach upon her with its chill- 
ing gloom, like an insidious cold drift of sand, 
smothering her beauty, burying her quick heart 
away from the world for which it longed, for 
evermore. 

It would need the noise of little feet across 
those broad, empty, lonesome porches to wake 
the old house; the shouting and laughter and 
gleam of merry eyes that childhood brings into 
this world’s gloom, to drive away the shadows 
that draped it like a mist. Perhaps Vesta stood 
there tonight sending her soul out in a call to 
someone for whom she longed, these comfort- 
able, natural, womanly hopes in her own good 
heart. 

He sighed, wishing her well of such hope if 
she had it, and forgot her in a moment as his 
eyes picked up a light far across the hills. Now 
it twinkled brightly, now it wavered and died, 
as if its beam was all too weak to hold to the 
continued effort of projecting itself so far. 
That must be the Kerr ranch ; no other habita- 
tion lay in that direction. Perhaps in the light 
of that lamp somebody was sitting, bending a 
287 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


dark head in pensive tenderness with a thought 
of him. 

He stood with his pleasant fancy, his dream 
around him like a cloak. All the trouble that 
was in the world for him that hour was near 
the earth, like the precipitation of settling wa- 
ters. Over it he gazed, superior to its ugly 
murk, careless of whether it might rise to befoul 
the clear current of his hopes, or sink and set- 
tle to obscure his dreams no more. 

There was a sound of falling shale on the 
slope, following the disturbance of a quick foot. 
Vesta was coming. Unseen and unheard 
through the insulation of his thoughts, she 
had approached within ten rods of him before 
he saw her, the moonlight on her fair face, 
glorious in her uncovered hair. 


288 


CHAPTER XX 

BUSINESS, AND MOKE 

OU stand out like an Indian water monu- 



X ment up here,^^ she said reprovingly, as 
she came scrambling up, taking the hand that 
he hastened forward to offer and boost her over 
the last sharp face of crumbling shale. 

‘ ‘ I expect Hargus could pick me off from be- 
low there anywhere, but I didn T think of that, * ^ 
he said. 

It wouldn’t be above him,” seriously, dis- 
counting the light way in which he spoke of it; 
‘‘ he’s done things just as cowardly, and so 
have others you ’ve met. ’ ’ 

I haven’t got much opinion of the valor of 
men who hunt in packs, Vesta. Some of them 
might be skulking around, glad to take a shot at 
us. Don’t you think we’d better go down? ” 
‘‘We can sit over there and be off the sky- 
line. It’s always the safe thing to do around 
here.” 


289 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


She indicated a point where an inequality in 
the hill would be above their heads sitting, and 
there they composed themselves ■ — the shelter- 
ing swell of hilltop at their backs. 

‘‘ It^s not a very complimentary reflection 
on a civilized community that one has to take 
such a precaution, but it^s necessary, Duke.^^ 

‘‘ It’s enough to make you want to leave it, 
Vesta. It’s bad enough to have to dodge dan- 
ger in a city, but out here, with all this lone- 
someness around you, it’s worse.” 

^ ‘ Do you feel it lonesome here ? ’ ’ She asked 
it with a curious soft slowness, a speculative de- 
tachment, as if she only half thought of what 
she said. 

‘‘I’m never lonesome where I can see the sun 
rise and set. There’s a lot of company in cat- 
tle, more than in any amount of people you 
don’t know,” 

“ I find it the same way, Duke. I never was 
so lonesome as when I was away from here at 
school. ’ ’ 

“ Everybody feels that way about home, I 
guess. But I thought maybe you ’d like it better 
away among people like yourself.” 

290 


BUSINESS, AND MORE 


No. If it wasn^t for this endless straining 
and watching, quarreling and contending, I 
wouldn ’t change this for any place in the world. 
On nights like this, when it whispers in a thou- 
sand inaudible voices, and beckons and holds 
one close, I feel that I never can go away. 
There ’s a call in it that is so subtle and tender, 
so full of sympathy, that I answer it with 
tears.’’ 

I wish things could be cleared up so you 
could live here in peace and enjoy it, but I don’t 
know how it’s going to come out. It looks to 
me like I’ve made it worse.” 

It was wrong of me to draw you into itf 
Duke; I should have let you go your way.” 

There’s no regrets on my side, Vesta. I 
guess it was planned for me to come this far 
and stop.” 

They’ll never rest till they’ve drawn you 
into a quarrel that will give them an excuse for 
killing you, Duke. They’re doubly sure to do 
it since you got away from them that night. I 
shouldn’t have stopped you; I should have let 
you go on that day. ’ ’ 

I had to stop somewhere, Vesta,” he 
291 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


laughed. ^‘Anyway, IVe found here what I 
started out to find. This was the end of my 
road. ’ ’ 

* ^ What you started to find, Duke f ’ ^ 

‘‘A man-sized job, I guess. He laughed 
again, but with a colorless artificiality, sweat- 
ing over the habit of solitude that leads a man 
into thinking aloud. 

‘‘ You Ve found it, all right, Duke, and you’re 
filling it. That’s some satisfaction to you, I 
know. But it’s a man-using job, a life-wasting 
job,” she said sadly. 

I’ve only got myself to blame for anything 
that ’s happened to me here, Vesta. It ’s not the 
fault of the job.” 

Well, if you’ll stay with me till I sell the 
cattle, Duke, I’ll think of you as the next best 
friend I ever had.” 

I’ve got no intention of leaving you, 
Vesta.” 

Thank you, Duke.” 

Lambert sat turning over in his mind some- 
thing that he wanted to say to her, but which 
he could not yet shape to his tongue. She was 
looking in the direction of the light that he had 
292 


BUSINESS, AND MORE 


been watching, a gleam of which showed faintly 
now and then, as if between moving boughs. 

‘ ^ I don ’t like the notion of your leaving this 
country whipped, Vesta,’’ he said, coming to it 
at last. 

‘ ‘ I don ’t like to leave it whipped, Duke. ’ ’ 

That’s the way they’ll look at it if you go.” 

Silence again, both watching the far-distant, 
twinkling light. 

I laid out the job for myself of bringing 
these outlaws around here up to your fence with 
their hats in their hands, and I hate to give it 
up before I’ve made good on my word.” 

Let it go, Duke; it isn’t worth the fight.” 

‘‘A man’s word is either good for all he 
intends it to be, or worth no more than the low- 
est scoundrel’s, Vesta. If I don’t put up works 
to equal what I’ve promised, I’ll have" to sneak 
out of this country between two suns.” 

I threw off too much on the shoulders of 
a willing and gallant stranger,” she sighed. 
‘ ‘ Let it go, Duke ; I’ve made up my mind to sell 
out and leave.” 

He made no immediate return to this declara- 
tion, but after a while he said: 

293 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


This will be a mighty bleak spot with the 
house abandoned and dark on winter nights 
and no stock around the barns.’’ 

‘‘ Yes, Duke.” 

There’s no place so lonesome as one where 
somebody’s lived, and put his hopes and am- 
bitions into it, and gone away and left it empty. 
I can hear the winter wind cuttin’ around the 
house down yonder, mournin’ like a widow 
woman in the night.” 

A sob broke from her, a sudden, sharp, strug- 
gling expression of her sorrow for the desola- 
tion that he pictured in his simple words. She 
bent her head into her hands and cried. Lam- 
bert was sorry for the pain that he had unwit- 
tingly stirred in her breast, but glad in a 
glowing tenderness to see that she had this hu- 
man strain so near the surface that it could be 
touched by a sentiment so common, and yet so 
precious, as the love of home. He laid his hand 
on her head, stroking her soft, wavy hair. 

Never mind, Vesta,” he petted, as if com- 
forting a child. Maybe we can fix things up 
here so there’ll be somebody to take care of 
it. Never mind — don ’t you grieve and cry. ’ ’ 
294 


BUSINESS, AND MORE 


‘‘ It^s home — the only home I ever knew. 
There ’s no place in the world that can be to me 
what it has been, and is.’^ 

That^s so, that^s so. I remember, I know. 
The wind donT blow as soft, the sun don’t shine 
as bright, anywhere else as it does at home. 
It’s been a good while since I had one, and it 
wasn ’t much to see, but I ’ve got the recollection 
of it by me always — I can see every log in 
the walls.” 

He felt her shiver with the sobs she struggled 
to repress as his hand rested on her hair. His 
heart went out to her in a surge of tenderness 
when he thought of all she had staked in that 
land — her youth and the promise of life — of 
all she had seen planned in hope, built in ex- 
pectation, and all that lay buried now on the 
bleak mesa marked by two white stones. 

And he caressed her with gentle hand, looking 
away the while at the spark of light that came 
and went, came and went, as if through blow- 
ing leaves. So it flashed and fell, flashed and 
fell, like a slow, slow pulse, and died out, as a 
spark in tinder dies, leaving the far night blank. 

Vesta sat up, pushed her hair back from her 
295 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


forehead, her white hand lingering there. He 
touched it, pressed it comfortingly. 

* ‘ But I dl have to go, ^ ^ she said, calm in voice, 
to end this trouble and strife. 

IVe been wondering, since I’m kind of 
pledged to clean things up here, whether you ’d 
consider a business proposal from me in re- 
gard to taking charge of the ranch for you 
while you’re gone, Vesta.” 

She looked up with a quick start of eager- 
ness. 

You mean I oughtn’t sell the cattle, 
Duke? ” 

‘‘ Yes, I think you ought to clean them out. 
The bulk of them are in as high condition as 
they’ll ever be, and the market’s better right 
now that it’s been in years.” 

Well, what sort of a proposal were you 
going to make, Duke? ” 

Sheep.” 

Father used to consider turning around to 
sheep. The country would come to it, he said.” 

Coming to it more and more every day. 
The sheep business is the big future thing in 
here. Inside of five years everybody will be in 
296 


BUSINESS, AND MORE 


the sheep business, and that will mean the end 
of these rustler camps that go under the name 
of cattle ranches.’^ 

‘‘I’m willing to consider sheep, Duke. Go 
ahead with the plan. ’ ’ 

“ There’s twice the money in them, and not 
half the expense. One man can take care of 
two or three thousand, and you can get sheep- 
herders any day. There can’t be any possible 
objection to them inside your own fence, and 
you’ve got range for ten or fifteen thousand. 
I’d suggest about a thousand to begin with, 
though. ’ ’ 

“I’d do it in a minute, Duke — I’ll do it 
whenever you say the word. Then I could leave 
Ananias and Myrtle here, and I could come back 
in the summer for a little while, maybe.” 

She spoke with such eagerness, such appeal 
of loneliness, that he knew it would break her 
heart ever to go at all. So there on the hilltop 
they planned and agreed on the change from 
cattle to sheep, Lambert to have half the in- 
crease, according to the custom, with herder’s 
wages for two years. She would have been 
more generous in the matter of pay, but that 
297 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


was the basis upon which he had made his plans, 
and he would admit no change. 

Vesta was as enthusiastic over it as a child, 
all eagerness to begin, seeing in the change a 
promise of the peace for which she had so 
ardently longed. She appeared to have come 
suddenly from under a cloud of oppression and 
to sparkle in the sun of this new hope. It was 
only when they came to parting at the porch 
that the ghost of her old trouble came to take 
its place at her side again. 

Has she cut the fence lately over there, 
Duke? ’’ she asked. 

Not since I caught her at it. I don’t think 
she’ll do it again.” 

“ Did she promise you she wouldn’t cut it, 
Duke? ” 

She did not look at him as she spoke, but 
stood with her face averted, as if she would 
avoid prying into his secret too directly. Her 
voice was low, a note of weary sadness in it 
that seemed a confession of the uselessness of 
turning her back upon the strife that she would 
forget. 

‘‘No, she didn’t promise.” 

298 


BUSINESS, AND MORE 


‘‘ If she doesn’t cnt the fence she’ll plan to 
hurt me in some other way. It isn’t in her to 
be honest; she couldn’t be honest if she tried.” 

I don’t like to condemn anybody without 
a trial, Vesta. Maybe she’s changed.” 

‘‘You can’t change a rattlesnake. You seem 
to forget that she ’s a Kerr. ’ ’ 

“ Even at that, she might be different from 
the rest.” 

“ She never has been. You’ve had a taste 
of the Kerr methods, but you’re not satisfied 
yet that they’re absolutely base and dishonor- 
able in every thought and deed. You’ll find it 
out to your cost, Duke, if you let that girl lead 
you. She’s a will-o’-the-wisp sent to lure you 
from the trail.” 

Lambert laughed a bit foolishly, as a man 
does when the intuition of a woman uncovers 
the thing that he prided himself was so skilfully 
concealed that mortal eyes could not find it. 
Vesta was reading through him like a piece of 
greased parchment before a lamp. 

“ I guess it will all come out right,” he said 
weakly. 

“ You’ll meet Kerr one of these days with 
299 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


your old score between you, and he’ll kill you 
or you’ll kill him. She knows it as well as I do. 
Do you suppose she can be sincere with you and 
keep this thing covered up in her heart! You 
seem to have forgotten what she remembers and 
plots on every minute of her life. ’ ’ 

I don’t think she knows anything about 
what happened to me that night, Vesta.” 

^ ^ She knows all about it, ’ ’ said Vesta coldly. 
I don’t know her very well, of course; I’ve 
only passed a few words with her, ’ ’ he excused. 

‘^And a few notes hung on the fence! ” she 
said, not able to hide her scorn. She’s gone 
away laughing at you every time.” 

‘‘ I thought maybe peace and quiet could be 
established through her if she could be made to 
see things in a civilized way.” 

Vesta made no rejoinder at once. She put 
her foot on the step as if to leave him, with- 
drew it, faced him gravely. 

“ It’s nothing to me, Duke, only I don’t vmnt 
to see her lead you into another fire. Keep your 
eyes open and your hand close to your gun 
when you’re visiting with her.” 

She left him with that advice, given so 
300 


BUSINESS, AND MORE 


gravely and honestly that it amounted to more 
than a warning. He felt that there was some- 
thing more for him to say to make his position 
clear, but could not marshal his words. Vesta 
entered the house without looking back to where 
he stood, hat in hand, the moonlight in his fair 
hair. 


301 


CHAPTER XXI 


A TEST OF LOYALTY 

L ambert rode to Ms rendezvous with 
1 Grace Kerr on the appointed day, believ- 
ing that she would keep it, although her promise 
had been inconclusive. She had only ‘‘ ex- 
pected ’’ she would be there, but he more than 
expected she would come. 

He. was in a pleasant mood that morning, sen- 
timentally softened to such extent that he be- 
lieved he might even call accounts off with Sim 
Hargus and the rest of them if Grace could 
arrange a peace. Vesta was a little rough on 
her, he believed. Grace was showing a spirit 
that seemed to prove she wanted only gentle 
^guiding to abandon the practices of violence 
to which she had been bred. 

Certainly, compared to Vesta, she seemed of 
coarser ware, even though she was as handsome 
as heart could desire. This he admitted with- 
out prejudice, not being yet wholly blind. But 
302 


A TEST OF LOYALTY 


there was no bond of romance between Vesta 
and him. There was no place for romance be- 
tween a man and his boss. Romance bound him 
to Grrace Kerr; sentiment enchained him. It 
was a sweet enslavement, and one to be pro- 
longed in his desire. 

Grace was not in sight when he reached their 
meeting-place. He let down the wire and rode 
to meet her, troubled as before by that feeling 
of disloyalty to the Philbrook interests which 
caused him to stop more than once and debate 
whether he should turn back and wait inside the 
fence. 

The desire to hasten the meeting with Grace 
was stronger than this question of his loyalty* 
He went on, over the hill from which she used 
to spy on his passing, into the valley where he 
had interfered between the two girls on the day 
that he found Grace hidden away in this unex- 
pected place. There he met her coming down 
the farther slope. 

Grace was quite a different figure that day 
from any she had presented before, wearing a 
perky little highland bonnet with an eagle 
feather in it, and a skirt and blouse of the sama 
303 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


plaid. His eyes announced his approval as 
they met, leaning to shake hands from the 
saddle. 

Immediately he brought himself to task for 
his late admission that she was inferior in the 
eyes to Vesta. That misappraisement was due 
to the disadvantage under which he had seen 
Grace heretofore. This morning she was as 
dainty as a fresh-blown pink, and as delicately 
sweet. He swung from the saddle and stood off 
admiring her with so much speaking from his 
eyes that she grew rosy in their fire. 

‘‘ Will you get down, Grace f Vve never had 
a chance to see how tall you are — I couldnT 
tell that day on the train.’’ 

The eagle feather came even with his ear 
when she stood beside him, slender and strong, 
health in her eyes, her womanhood ripening in 
her lips. Not as tall as Vesta, not as full of 
figure, he began in mental measurement, burn- 
ing with self-reproof when he caught himself 
at it. Why should he always be drawing com- 
parisons between her and Vesta, to her disad- 
vantage in all things? It was unwarranted, it 
was absurd! 


304 


A TEST OP LOYALTY 


They sat on the hillside, their horses nip- 
ping each other in introductory preliminaries, 
then settling down to immediate friendship. 
They were far beyond sight of the fence. Lam- 
bert hoped, with an uneasy return of that feel- 
ing of disloyalty and guilt, that Vesta would 
not come riding up that way and find the open 
strands of wire. 

This thought passed away and troubled him 
no more as they sat talking of the strange way 
of their meeting on the run,’^ as she said. 

‘ ‘ There isn T a horse in a thousand that could 
have caught up with me that day. ’ ’ 

‘‘ Not one in thousands,’’ he amended, with 
due gratitude to Whetstone. 

‘‘ I expected you’d be riding him today, 
Duke. ’ ’ 

He backed into a fire,” said he uneasily^ 
‘ ‘ and burned otf most of his tail. He ’s no sight 
for a lady in his present shape.” 

' She laughed, looking at him shrewdly, as if 
she believed it to be a joke to cover something 
that he didn’t want her to know. 

‘ ^ But you promised to give him to me, Duke,, 
when he rested up a little.” 

305 


THE DUKE OF CHIMisrEY BUTTE 


^ ^ I will, ’ ’ he declared earnestly, getting hold 
of her hand where it lay in the grass between 
them. Idl give yon anything IVe got, Grace, 
from the breath in my body to the blood in my 
heart! ” 

She bent her head, her face rosy with her 
mounting blood. 

Would you, Duke? said she, so softly that 
it was not much more than the flutter of the 
wings of words. 

He leaned a little nearer, tiis heart climbing, 
as if it meant to smother him and cut him short 
in that crowning moment of his dream. 

‘‘I’d have gone to the end of the world to 
find you, Grace,” he said, his voice shaking as 
if he had a chill, his hands cold, his face hot, a 
tingling in his body, a sound in his ears like 
bells. “ I want to tell you how ” 

“ Wait, Duke — I want to hear it all — but 
wait a minute. There’s something I want to 
ask you to do for me. Will you do me a favor, 
Duke, a simple favor, but one that means the 
world and all to me I ’ ’ 

“ Try me,” said he, with boundless confi- 
dence. 


306 


A TEST OF LOYALTY 


^ ^ It more than giving me your horse, Duke ; 
a whole lot more than that, but it’ll not hurt you 

— you can do it, if you will. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I know you wouldn ’t ask me to do anything 
that would reflect on my honesty or honor, ’ ’ he 
said, beginning to do a little thinking as his 
nervous chill passed. 

‘‘A man doesn’t — when a man cares — ” 
She stopped, looking away, a little constriction 
in her throat. 

*■ ‘ What is it, Grace ? ’ ’ pressing her hand en- 
couragingly, master of the ’situation now, as he 
believed. 

‘ ‘ Duke ’ ’ — she turped to him suddenly, her 
eyes wide and luminous, her heart going so he 
could see the tremor of its vibrations in the lace 
at her throat — ^ ‘ I want you to lend me tomor- 
row morning, for one day, just one day, Duke 

— five hundred head of Vesta Philbrook’s cat- 
tle.” 

‘‘ That’s a funny thing to ask, Grace,” said 
he uneasily. 

I want you to meet me over there where I 
cut the fence before sunup- in the morning, and 
have everybody out of the way, so we can cut 
307 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


them out and drive them over here. You can 
manage it, if you want to, Duke. You will, if 
you — if you careJ^ 

‘ ‘ If they were my cattle, Grace, I wouldn ’t 
hesitate a second. ^ ’ 

Youdl do it, anyhow, won’t you, Duke, for 
me? ” 

What in the world do you want them for, 
just for one day? ” 

I can’t explain that to you now, Duke, but 
I pledge you my honor, I pledge you everything, 
that they’ll be returned to you before night, not 
a head missing, nothing wrong. ’ ’ 

Does your father know — does he ” 

‘‘It’s for myself that I’m asking this of you, 
Duke; nobody else. It means — it means — 
everything to me.” 

“ If they were my cattle, Grace, if they wer3 
my cattle, ’ ’ said he aimlessly, amazed by the re- 
quest, groping for the answer that lay behind 
it. What could a girl want to borrow five hun- 
dred head of cattle for? What in the world 
would she get out of holding them in her pos- 
session one day and then turning them back into 
the pasture ? There was something back of it ; 

308 


A TEST OF LOYALTY 


she was the innocent emissary of a crafty hand 
that had a trick to play. 

We could run them over here, just you and 
I, and nobody would know anything about it,^^ 
she tempted, the color back in her cheeks, her 
eyes bright as in the pleasure of a request al- 
ready granted. 

I don’t like to refuse you even that, Grace.” 

‘‘ You’ll do it, you’ll do it, Duke? ” Her 
hand was on his arm in beguiling caress, her 
eyes were pleading into his. 

‘‘I’m afraid not, Grace.” 

Perhaps she felt a shading of coldness in his 
denial, for distrust and suspicion were rising in 
his cautious mind. It did not seem to him a 
thing that could be asked with any honest pur- 
pose, but for what dishonest one he had no con- 
jecture to fit. 

“Are you going to turn me down on the first 
request I ever made of you, Duke? ” She 
watched him keenly as she spoke, making her 
eyes small, an inflection of sorrowful injury in 
her tone. 

‘ ‘ If there ’s anything of my own you want, if 
there’s anything you can name for me to do, 
309 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


personally, all youVe got to do is hint at it 
once. ’ ’ 

‘‘ It’s easy to say that when there’s nothing 
else I want! ” she said, snapping it at him as 
sharp as the crack of a little whip. 

If there was anything ” 

‘ ‘ There ’ll never be anything I ’ ’ 

She got up, flashing him an indignant look. 
He stood beside her, despising the poverty of 
his condition which would not aUow him to de- 
liver over to her, out of hand, the small matter 
of five hundred beeves. 

She went to her horse, mightily put out and 
impatient with him, as he could see, threw the 
reins over her pommel, as if she intended to 
leave him at once. She delayed mounting, sud- 
denly putting out her hands in supplication, 
tears springing in her eyes. 

‘ ‘ Oh, Duke ! If you knew how much it means 
to me, ’ ’ she said. 

‘‘ Why don’t you tell me, Grace! ” 

‘‘ Even if you stayed back there on the hills 
somewhere and watched them you wouldn’t do 
it, Duke! ” she appealed, evading his request. 

He shook his head slowly, while the thoughts 
310 


A TEST OF LOYALTY 


within it ran like wildfire, seeking the thing that 
she covered. 

‘‘ It can’t be done.” 

I give you my word, Duke, that if you’ll do 
it nobody will ever lift a hand against this ranch 
again.” 

It’s almost worth it,” said he. 

She quickened at this, enlarging her guaran- 
tee. 

We’ll drop all of the old feud and let Vesta 
alone. I give you my word for all of them, and 
I’ll see that they carry it out. You can do Vesta 
as big a favor as you’ll be doing me, Duke.” 

It couldn’t be done without her consent, 
Grace. If you want to go to her with this same 
proposal, putting it plainly like you have to me, 
I think she ’ll let you have the cattle, if you can 
show her any good reason for it.” 

Just as if I’d be fool enough to ask her! ” 
‘‘ That’s the only way.” 

Duke,” said she coaxingly, wouldn’t it be 
worth something to you, personally, to have 
your troubles settled without a fight? I’ll 
promise you nobody will ever lift a hand against 
you again if you’ll do this for me.” 

311 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


He started, looked at her sternly, approach- 
ing her a step. 

“ What do you know about anything that’s 
happened to me! ” he demanded. 

I don’t know anything about what’s hap- 
pened, but I know what’s due to happen if it 
isn’t headed off.” 

Lambert did some hard thinking for a little 
while, so hard that it wrenched him to the mar- 
row. If he had had suspicion of her entire in- 
nocence in the solicitation of this unusual favor 
before, it had sprung in a moment into distrust. 
Such a quick reversion cannot take place in the 
sentiment without a shock. It seemed to Lam- 
bert that something valuable had been snatched 
away from him, and that he stood in bewilder- 
ment, unable to reach out and retrieve his loss. 

Then there’s no use in discussing it any 
more,” he said, groping back, trying to answer 
her. / 

You’d do it for her! ” 

Not for her any quicker than for you.” 

‘‘ I know it looks crooked to you, Duke — I 
don’t blame you for your suspicions,” she said 
with a frankness that seemed more like herself, 
312 


A TEST OF LOYALTY 


he thought. She even seemed to be coming back 
to him in that approach. It made him glad. 

Tell me all about it, Grace, he urged. 

She came close to him, put her arm about his 
neck, drew his head down as if to whisper her 
confidence in his ear. Her breath was on his 
cheek, his heart was afire in one foolish leap. 
She put up her lips as if to kiss him, and he, 
reeling in the ecstasy of his proximity to her 
radiant body, bent nearer to take what^-she 
seemed to offer. 

She drew back, her hand interposed before 
his eager lips, shaking her head, denying him 
prettily. 

In the morning, Ifil tell you all in the morn- 
ing when I meet you to drive the cattle over,’^ 
she said. DonT say a word — ITl not take no 
for my answer. She turned quickly to her 
horse and swung lightly into the saddle. From 
this perch she leaned toward him, her hand on 
his shoulder, her lips drawing him in their fiery 
lure again. ‘‘ In the morning — in the morn- 
ing — you can kiss me, Duke ! ^ ^ 

With that word, that promise, she turned and 
galloped away. - 


313 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


It was late afternoon, and Lambert bad faced 
back toward the ranchhouse, troubled by all 
that he could not understand in that morning’s 
meeting, thrilled and fired by all that was sweet 
to remember, when he met a man who came rid- 
ing in the haste of one who had business ahead 
of him that could not wait. He was riding one 
of Vesta Philbrook’s horses, a circumstance 
that sharpened Lambert’s interest in him at 
once. 

As they closed the distance between them, 
Lambert keeping his hand in the easy neighbor- 
hood of his gun, the man raised his hand, palm 
forward, in the Indian sign of peace. Lambert 
saw that he wore a shoulder holster which sup- 
ported two heavy revolvers. He was a solemn- 
looking man with a narrow face, a mustache 
that crowded Taterleg’s for the championship, 
a buckskin vest with pearl buttons. His coat 
was tied on the saddle at his back. 

I didn’t steal this horse,” he explained with 
a sorrowful grin as he drew up within arm’s 
length of Lambert, I requisitioned it. I’m the 
sheriff.” 

Yes, sir? ” said Lambert, not quite taking 
314 


A TEST OP LOYALTY 


him for granted, no intention of letting him pass 
on with that explanation. 

“ Miss Philbrook said I^d run across you up 
this way.” 

The officer produced his badge, his commis- 
sion, his card, his letterhead, his credentials of 
undoubted strength. On the proof thus sup- 
plied, Lambert shook hands with him. 

^ ‘ I guess everybody else in the county knows 
me — this is my second term, and I never was 
taken for a horse thief before,” the sheriff said, 
solemn as a crow, as he put his papers away. 

I’m a stranger in this country, I don’t know 
anybody, nobody knows me, so you ’ll not take it 
as a slight that I didn’t recognize you, Mr. 
Sheriff. ’ ’ 

No harm done, Duke, no harm done. Well, 
I guess you’re a little wider known than you 
make out. I didn’t bring a man along with me 
because I knew you were up here at Philbrook ’s. 
Hold up your hand and be sworn. ’ ’ 

‘‘ What’s the occasion? ” Lambert inquired, 
making no move to comply with the order. 

I’ve got a warrant for this man Kerr over 
south of here, and I want you to go with me. 

315 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Kerr’s a bad egg, in a nest of bad eggs. There’s 
likely to be too much trouble for one man to 
handle alone. You do solemnly swear to sup- 
port the constitution of the ” 

‘‘ Wait a minute, Mr. Sheriff,” Lambert de- 
murred; I don’t know that I want to mix up 
in ” 

It’s not for you to say what you want to 
do — that’s my business,” the sheriff said 
sharply. He forthwith deputized Lambert, and 
gave him a duplicate of the warrant. ‘‘You 
don’t need it, but it’ll clear your mind of all 
doubt of your power, ’ ’ he explained. ‘ ‘ Can we 
get through this fence ? ’ ’ 

“ Up here six or seven miles, about opposite 
Kerr’s place. But I’d like to go on to the house 
and change horses ; I’ve rode this one over forty 
miles today already. ’ ’ 

The sheriff agreed. “ Where’s that outlaw 
you won from Jim Wilder? ” he inquired, turn- 
ing his eyes on Lambert in friendly apprecia- 
tion. 

“ I’ll ride him,” Lambert returned briefly. 
“ What’s Kerr been up to? ” 

“ Mortgaged a bunch of cattle he’s got over 
316 


A TEST OP LOYALTY 


there to three different banks. He was down a 
couple of days ago tryin’ to put through an- 
other loan. The investigation that banker 
started laid him bare. He promised Kerr to 
come up tomorrow and look over his security, 
and passed the word on to the county attorney. 
Kerr said he^d just bought five hundred head 
of stock. He wanted to raise the loan on them. ’ ^ 
^ ‘ Five hundred, ’ ^ said Lambert, mechanically 
repeating the sheriff's words, doing some cal- 
culating of his own. 

He ainT got any that ain’t blanketed with 
mortgage paper so thick already they’d go 
through ^ blizzard and never know it. His 
scheme was to raise five or six thousand dollars 
more on that outfit and skip the country. ’ ’ 

And Grace Kerr had relied on his infatuation 
for her to work on him for the loan of the neces- 
sary cattle. Lambert could not believe that it 
was all her scheme, but it seemed incredible 
that a man as shrewdly dishonest as Kerr would 
entertain a plan that promised so little outlook 
of success. They must have believed over at 
Kerr’s that they had him pretty well on the line. 
But Kerr had figured too surely on having 
317 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


his neighbor's cattle to show the banker to stake 
all on the chance of Grace being able to wheedle 
him into the scheme. If he couldn’t get them 
by seduction, he meant to take them in a raid. 
Grace never intended to come to meet him in the 
morning alone. 

One crime more would amount to little in ad- 
dition to what Kerr had done already, and it 
would be a trick on which he would pride him- 
self and laugh over all the rest of his life. It 
seemed certain now that Grace’s friendliness 
all along had been laid on a false pretense, with 
the one intention of beguiling him to his dis- 
grace, his destruction, if disgrace could not be 
accomplished without it. 

As he rode Whetstone — now quite recovered 
from his scorching, save for the hair of his once 
fine tail — beside the sheriff, Lambert had some 
uneasy cogitations on his sentimental blindness 
of the past; on the good, honest advice that 
Vesta Philbrook had given him. Blood was 
blood, after all. If the source of it was base, it 
was too much to hope that a little removal, a 
little dilution, would ennoble it. She had lived 
there all her life the associate of thieves and 
318 


A TEST OF LOYALTY 


rascals ; her way of looking on men and prop- 
erty must naturally be that of the depredator, 
the pillager, and thief. 

‘^And yet,’’ thought he, thumb in the pocket 
of his hairy vest where the little haxidkerchief 
lay, ‘ ‘ and yet ’ ’ 


319 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE WILL-0 -THE-WISP 


HE Kerr ranch buildings were ntore than 



X a mile away from the point where Lam- 
bert and the sheriff halted to look down on 
them. The ranchhouse was a structure of logs 
from which the bark had been stripped, and 
which had weathered white as bones. It was 
long and low, suggesting spaciousness and com- 
fort, and enclosed about by a white picket fence. 

A winding trace of trees and brushwood 
marked the course of the stream that ran be- 
hind it. On the brink of this little water, where 
it flashed free of the tangled willows, there was 
a corral and stables, but no sign of either animal 
or human life about the place. 

‘‘ He may be out with the cattle, Lambert 
suggested. 

Wefll wait for him to come back, if he is. 
He^s sure to be home between now and tomor- 
row. ’ ’ 


320 


THE WILL-O’-THE-WISP 


So that was her home, that was the roof that 
had sheltered her while she grew in her loveli- 
ness. The soft call of his romance came whis- 
pering to him again. Surely^ there was no at- 
tainder of blood to rise up against her and make 
her unclean ; he would have sworn that moment, 
if put to the test, that she was innocent of any- 
knowing attempt to involve him to his disgrace. 
The gate of the world stood open to them to go 
away from that harsh land and forget all that 
had gone before, as the gate of his heart was 
open for all the love that it contained to rush 
out and embrace her, and purge her of the un- 
fortunate accident of her birth. 

After this, poor child, she would need a 
friend, as never before, with only her step- 
mother, as she had told him, in the world to be- 
friend her. A man ’s hand, a man ’s heart 

I’ll take the front door,” said the sheriff. 
‘‘You watch the back.” 

Lambert came out of his softening dream, 
down to the hard facts in the case before him 
with a jolt. They were within half a mile of the 
house, approaching it from the front. He saw 
that it was built in the shape of an L, the base 
321 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


of the letter to the left of them, shutting off a 
view of the angle. 

He may see us in time to duck,’' the sher- 
iff said, and you can bank on it he’s got a 
horse saddled around there at the back door. 
If he comes your way, don ’t fool with him ; let 
him have it where he lives. ’ ’ 

They had not closed up half the distance be- 
tween them and the house when two horsemen 
rode suddenly round the corner of the L and 
through the wide gate in the picket fence. Out- 
side the fence they separated with the sudden- 
ness of a preconcerted plan, darting away in op- 
posite directions. Each wore a white hat, and 
from that distance they appeared as much alike 
in size and bearing as a man and his reflection. 

The sheriff swore a surprised oath at sight of 
them, and their cunning plan to confuse and di- 
vide the pursuing force. 

Which one of ’em’s Kerr? ” he shouted as 
he leaned in his saddle, urging his horse on for 
all that it could do. 

I don’t know,” Lambert returned. 

‘‘I’ll chance this one,” said the sheriff, point- 
ing. “ Take the other feller.” 

322 


THE WILL-O^THE-WISP 


\ 


Lambert knew that one of them was Grace 
Kerr. That he could not tell which, he up- 
braided himself, not willing that she should be 
subjected to the indignity of pursuit. It was a 
clever trick, but the preparation for it and the 
readiness with which it was put into play 
seemed to reflect a doubt of her entire innocence 
in her father’s dishonest transactions. Still, 
it was no more than natural that she should 
bend every faculty to the assistance of her fa- 
ther in escaping the penalty of his crimes. He 
would do it himself under like conditions; the 
unnatural would be the other course. 

These things he thought as he rode into the 
setting sun in pursuit of the fugitive designated 
by the sheriff. Whetstone was fresh and eager 
after his long rest, in spite of the twelve or fif- 
teen miles which he had covered already be- 
tween the two ranches. Lambert held him in, 
doubtful whether he would be able to overtake 
the fleeing rider before dark with the advantage 
of distance and a fresh horse that he or she had. 

If Kerr rode ahead of him, then he must be 
overtaken before night gave him sanctuary; if 
Grace, it was only necessary to come close 
323 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


enough to her to make sure, then let her go her 
way untroubled. He held the distance pretty 
well between them till sundown, when he felt 
the time had come to close in and settle the 
doubt. Whetstone was still mainly in reserve, 
tireless, deep-winded creature that he was. 

Lambert leaned over his neck, caressed him, 
spoke into the ear ttat tipped watchfully back. 
They were in fairly smooth country, stretches 
of thin grasslands and broken barrens, but be- 
yond them, a few miles, the hills rose, treeless 
and dun, offering refuge for the one who fled. 
Pursuit there would be difficult by day, impos- 
sible by night. 

Whetstone quickened at his master’s encour- 
agement, pushing the race hard for the one who 
led, cutting down the distance so rapidly that it 
seemed the other must be purposely delaying. 
Half an hour more of daylight and it would be 
over. 

The rider iii the lead had driven his or her 
horse too hard in the beginning, leaving no re- 
covery of wind. Lambert remarked its weari- 
ness as it took the next hill, laboring on in short, 
stiff jumps. At the top the rider held in, as if 
324 


THE WILL-0 ^THE- WISP 


to let the animal blow. It stood with nose close 
to the ground, weariness in every line. 

The sky was bright beyond horse and rider, 
cut sharply by the line of the hill. Against it 
the picture stood, black as a shadow, but with 
an unmistakable pose in the rider that made 
Lambert’s heart jump and grow glad. 

It was Grace; chance had been kind to him 
again, leading him in the way his heart would 
have gone if it had been given the choice. She 
looked back, turning with a hand on the cantle 
~ of her saddle. He waved his hand, to assure 
her, but she did not seem to read the friendly 
signal, for she rode on again, disappearing over 
the hill before he reached the crest. 

He plunged down after her, not sparing his 
horse where he should have spared him, urging 
him on when they struck the level again. There 
was no thought in him of Whetstone now — 
only of Grace. 

He must overtake her in the quickest possible 
time, and convince her of his friendly sym- 
pathy ; he must console and comfort her in this 
hour of her need. Brave little thing, to draw 
him off that way, to keep on running into the 
325 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


very edge of night, that wild country ahead of 
her, for fear he would come close enough to rec- 
ognize her and turn back to help the sheriff on 
the true trail. That’s what was in her mind; 
she thought he hadn’t recognized her, and was 
still fleeing to draw him as far away as possible 
by dark. When he could come within shouting 
distance of her, he could make his intention 
plain. To that end he pushed on. Her horse 
had shown a fresh impulse of speed, carrying 
her a little farther ahead. They were drawing 
close to the hills now, with a growth of harsh 
and thorny brushwood in the low places along 
the runlets of dry streams. 

Poor little bird, fleeing from him, luring him 
on like a trembling quail that flutters before 
one’s feet in the wheat to draw him away from 
her nest. She didn’t know the compassion of his 
heart, the tenderness in which it strained to her 
over the intervening space. He forgot all, he 
forgave all, in the soft pleading of romance 
which came back to him like a well-loved mel- 
ody. 

He fretted that dusk was falling so fast. In 
the little strips of valley, growing narrower as 
326 


THE WILL-0 ^THE-WISP 


lie proceeded between the abrupt hills, it was 
so nearly dark already that she appeared only 
dimly ahead of him, urging her horse on with 
unsparing hand. It seemed that she must have 
some objective ahead of her, some refuge which 
she strained to make, some help that she hoped 
to summon. 

He wondered if it might be the cow-camp, and 
felt a cold indraft on the hot tenderness of his 
heart for a moment. But, no ; it could not be 
the cow-camp. There was no sign that grazing 
herds had been there lately. She was running 
because she was afraid to have him overtake 
her in the dusk, running to prolong the race un- 
til she could elude him in the dark, afraid of 
him, who loved her so ! 

They were entering the desolation of the hills. 
On the sides of the thin strip of valley, down 
which he pursued her, there were great, dark 
rocks, as big as cottages along a village street. 
He shouted, calling her name, fearful that he 
should lose her in this broken country in the 
fast-deepening night. Although she was not 
more than two hundred yards ahead of him now, 
she did not seem to hear. In a moment she 
327 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


turned the base of a great rock, and there he 
lost her. 

The valley split a few rods beyond that point, 
broadening' a little, still set with its fantastic 
black monuments of splintered rock. It was im - 
possible to see among them in either direction 
as far as Grace had been in the lead when she 
passed out of his sight. He pulled up and 
shouted again, an appeal of tender concern in 
her name. There was no reply, no sound of her 
fleeing horse. 

He leaned to look at the ground for tracks. 
No trace of her passing on the hard earth with 
its mangy growth of grass. On a little way, 
'stopping to call her once more. His voice went 
echoing in that quiet place, but there was no re- 

piy- 

He turned back, thinking she must have gone 
down the other branch of the valley. Whetstone 
came to a sudden stop, lifted his head with a 
jerk, his ears set forward, snorting an alarm. 
Quick on his action there came a shot, close at 
hand. Whetstone started with a quivering 
bound, stumbled to his knees, struggled to rise, 
then floundered with piteous groans. 

328 


CHAPTEE XXIII 


UNMASKED 

L ambert was out of the saddle at the 
> sound of the shot. He sprang to the shel- 
ter of the nearest rock, gun in hand, thinking 
with a sweep of bitterness that Grace Kerr had 
led him into a trap. Whetstone was lying still, 
his chin on the ground, one foreleg bent and 
gathered under him, not in the posture of a dead 
horse, although Lambert knew that he was dead. 
It was as if the brave beast struggled even after 
life to picture the quality of his unconquerable 
will, and would not lie in death as other horses 
lay, cold and inexpressive of anything but 
death, with stiff limbs straight. 

Lambert was incautious of his own safety in 
his great concern for his horse. He stepped 
clear of his shelter to look at him, hoping 
against his conviction that he would rise. Some- 
body laughed behind the rock on his right, a 
laugh that plucked his heart up and cast it 
329 


THE DUKE OF CHUVINEY BUTTE 


down, as a drunken hand shatters a goblet upon 
the floor. 

I guess you’ll never race me on that horse 
again, fence-rider! ” 

There was the sound of movement behind the 
rock; in a moment Grace Kerr rode out from 
her concealment, not more than four rods be- 
yond the place where his horse lay. She rode 
out boldly and indifferently before his eyes, 
turned and looked hack at him, her face white 
as an evening primrose in the dusk, as if to tell 
him that she knew she was safe, even within 
the distance of his arm, much as she despised 
his calling and his kind. 

Lambert put his gun back in its sheath, and 
she rode on, disappearing again from his sight 
around the rock where the blasted valley of 
stones branched upon its arid way. He took the 
saddle from his dead horse and hid it behind a 
rock, not caring much whether he ever found it 
again, his heart so heavy that it seemed to bow 
him to the ground. 

So at last he knew her for what Vesta Phil- 
brook had told him she was — bad to the core of 
her heart. Kindness could not regenerate her, 
830 


UNMASKED 


love could not purge away the vicious strain of 
blood. She might have scorned him, and he 
would have bent his head and loved her more ; 
struck him, and he would have chided her with 
a look of love. But when she sent her bullet 
into poor old Whetstone ’s brain, she placed her- 
self beyond any absolution that even his soft 
heart could yield. 

He bent over Whetstone, caressing his head, 
speaking to him in his old terms of endearment, 
thinking of the many fruitless races he had run, 
believing that his own race in the Bad Lands 
had come to an end. 

If he had but turned back from the foot of 
the hill where he recognized her, as duty de- 
manded of him that he turn, and not pressed on 
with his simple intention of friendliness which 
she was too shallow to appreciate or under- 
stand, this heavy loss would have been spared 
him. For this dead animal was more to him 
than comrade and friend ; more than any man 
who has not shared the good and evil times wijh 
his horse in the silent places can comprehend. 

He could not fight a woman; there was no 
measure of revenge that he could take against 
331 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


her, but he prayed that she might suffer for this 
deed of treachery to him with a pang intensi- 
fied a thousand times greater than his that hour. 
Will-0 ^-the-wisp she had been to him, indeed, 
leading him a fooUs race since she first came 
twinkling into his life. 

Bitter were his reflections, somber was his 
heart, as he turned to walk the thirty miles or 
more that lay between him and the ranch, leav- 
ing old Whetstone to the wolves. 

Lambert was loading cattle nearly a week 
later when the sheriff returned Vesta’s horse, 
with apologies for its footsore and beaten state. 
He had followed Kerr far beyond his jurisdic- 
tion, pushing him a hard race through the hills, 
but the wily cattleman had evaded him in the 
end. 

The sheriff advised Lambert to put in a bill 
against the county for the loss of his horse, a 
proposal which Lambert considered with grave 
face and in silence. 

No,” he said at last, ‘‘ I’ll not put in a bill. 
I’ll collect in my own way from the one that 
owes me the debt.” 


832 


CHAPTER XXIV 


USE FOR AN OLD PAPER 

L ambert was a busy man for several 
/ weeks after his last race with the will-o’- 
the-wisp, traveling between Glendora and Chi- 
cago, disposing of the Philbrook herd. On this 
day he was jolting along with the last of the cat- 
tle that were of marketable condition and age, 
twenty cars of them, glad that the wind-up of 
it was in sight. 

Taterleg had not come this time on account 
of the Iowa boy having quit his job. There re- 
mained several hundred calves and thin cows in 
the Philbrook pasture, too much of a temptation 
to old Nick Hargus and his precious brother 
Sim to be left unguarded. 

Sitting there on top of a car, his prod-pole be- 
tween his knees, in his high-heeled boots and 
old dusty hat, the Duke was a typical figure of 
the old-time cow-puncher such as one never 
meets in these times around the stockyards of 
333 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


the Middle West. There are still cow-punchers, 
hut they are mainly mail-order ones who would 
shy from a gun such as pulled down on Lam- 
bert ^s belt that day. 

He sat there with the wind slamming the brim 
of his old hat up against the side of his head, a 
sober, serious man, such as one would choose 
for a business like this intrusted to him by 
Vesta Philbrook and never make a mistake. Al- 
ready he had sold more than eighty thousand 
dollars^ worth of cattle for her, and carried 
home to her the drafts. This time he was to 
take back the money, so they would have the 
cash to buy out Walleye, the sheepman, who 
was making a failure of the business and was 
anxious to quit. 

The Duke wondered, with a lonesome sort of 
pleasure, how things were going on the ranch 
that afternoon, and whether Taterleg was rid- 
ing the south fence now and then, as he had sug- 
gested, or sticking with the cattle. That was a 
pleasant country which he was traveling 
through, green fields and rich pastures as far as 
the eye could reach, a land such as he had spent 
the greater part of his life in, such as some peo- 
334 


USE FOR AN OLD PAPER 


pie who are provincial and untraveled call 

God’s country,” and are fully satisfied with 
in their way. 

But there seemed something lacking out of it 
to Lambert as he looked across the verdant flat- 
ness with pensive eyes, that great, gray some- 
thing that took hold of a man and drew him into 
its larger life, smoothed the wrinkles out of him, 
and stood him upright on his feet with the 
breath deeper in him than it ever had gone be- 
fore. He felt that he never would be content 
to remain amongst the visible plentitude of that 
fat, complacent, finished land again. 

Give him some place that called for a fight, 
a place where the wind blew with a different 
flavor than these domestic scents of hay and 
fresh-turned furrows in the wheatlands by the 
road. In his vision he pictured the place that 
he liked best — a rough, untrammeled country 
leading back to the purple hills, a long line of 
fence diminishing in its distance to a thread. 
He sighed, thinking of it. Dog-gone his melts, 
he was lonesome — lonesome for a fence ! 

He rolled a cigarette and felt about himself 
abstractedly for a match, in this pocket, where 
335 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Grace Kerris little handkerchief still lay, with 
no explanation or defense for its presence con- 
trived or attempted ; in that pocket, where his 
thumb encountered a folded paper. 

Still abstracted, his head turned to save his 
cigarette from the wind, he drew out this paper, 
wondering curiously when he had put it there 
and forgotten it. It was the warrant for the ar- 
rest of Berry Kerr. He remembered now hav- 
ing folded the paper and put it there the day 
the sheriff gave it to him, never having read a 
word of it from that day to this. Now he re- 
paired that omission. It gave him quite a feel- 
ing of importance to have a paper about him 
with that severe legal phraseology in it. He 
folded it and put it back in his pocket, wonder- 
ing what had become of Berry Kerr, and from 
him transferring his thoughts to Grace. 

She was still there on the ranch, he knew, al- 
though Kerris creditors had cleaned out the cat- 
tle, and doubtless were at law among themselves 
over the proceeds by now. How she would live, 
what she would do, he wondered. Perhaps Kerr 
had left some of the money he had made out of 
his multimortgage transactions, or perhaps he 
336 


USE FOR AN OLD PAPER 


would send for Grace and his wife when he had 
struck a gait in some other place. 

It didn^t matter one way or another. His 
interest in her was finished, his last gentle 
thought of her was dead. Only he hoped that 
she might live to be as hungry for a friendly 
word as his heart had been hungry of longing 
after her in its day ; that she might moan in con- 
trition and burn in shame for the cruelty in 
which she broke the vessel of his friendship and 
threw the fragments in his face. Poor old 
Whetstone ! his bones all scattered by the 
wolves by now over in that lonely gorge. 

Vesta Philbrook would not have been capable 
of a vengeance so mean. Strange how she had 
grown so gentle and so good under the constant 
persecution of this thieving gang! Her con- 
science was as clear as a windowpane ; a man 
could look through her soul and see the world 
undisturbed by a flaw beyond it. A good girl ; 
she sure was a good girl. And as pretty a figure 
on a horse as man ^s eye ever followed. 

She had said once that she felt it lonesome 
out there by the fence. Not half as lonesome, 
he’d gamble, as he was that minute to be back 
337 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


there riding her miles and miles of wire. Not 
lonesome on account of Vesta; sure not. Just 
lonesome for that dang old fence. 

Simple he was, sitting there on top of that 
hammering old cattle car that sunny afternoon, 
the dust of the road in his three-day-old beard, 
his barked willow prod-pole between his knees; 
simple as a ballad that children sing, simple as 
a homely tune. 

Well, of course he had kept Grace Kerr’s lit- 
tle handkerchief, for reasons that he could not 
quite define. Maybe because it seemed to rep- 
resent her as he would have had her; maybe 
because it was the poor little trophy of his first 
tenderness, his first yearning for a woman’s 
love. But he had kept it with the dim intention 
of giving it back to her, opportunity presenting. 

Yes, I’ll give it back to her,” he nodded; 

when the time comes I’ll hand it to her. She 
can wipe her eyes on it when she opens them 
and repents.” 

Then he fell to thinking of business, and what 
was best for Vesta’s interests, and of how he 
probably would take up Pat Sullivan’s offer for 
the calves, thus cleaning up her troubles and 
338 


USE FOR AN OLD PAPER 


making an end of her expenses. Pat Sullivan, 
the rancher for Ayhom Ben Jedlick was cook; he 
was the man. The Duke smiled through his 
grime and dust when he remembered Jedlick 
lying hack in the barber ’s chair. 

And old Taterleg, as good as gold and honest 
as a horse, was itching to be hitting the breeze 
for Wyoming. Selling the calves would give 
him the excuse that he had been casting about 
after for a month. He was writing letters to 
Nettie; she had sent her picture. A large- 
breasted, calf -faced girl with a crooked mouth. 
Taterleg might wait a year, or even four years 
more, with perfect safety. Nettie would not 
move very fast on the market, even in Wyo- 
ming, where ladies were said to be scarce. 

And so, pounding along, mile after mile 
through the vast green land where the bread of 
a nation grew, arriving at midnight among 
squeals and moans, trembling bleat of sheep, 
pitiful, hungry crying of calves, high, lonesome 
tenor notes of bewildered steers. That was the 
end of the journey for him, the beginning of the 
great adventure for the creatures under his 


care. 


339 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


By eleven o ’clock next morning, Lambert had 
a check for the cattle in his pocket, and bay rum 
on his face where the dust, the cinders and the 
beard had been but a little while before. He 
bought a little hand satchel in a second-hand 
store to carry the money home in, cashed his 
check and took a turn looking around, his big 
gun on his leg, his high-heeled boots making him 
toddle along in a rather ridiculous gait for an 
able-bodied cow-puncher from the Bad Lands. 

There was a train for home at six, that same 
flier he once had raced. There would be time 
enough for a man to look into the progress of 
the fine arts as represented in the pawn-shop 
windows of the stockyards neighborhood, be- 
fore striking a line for the Union Station to 
nail down a seat in the flier. It was while en- 
gaged in this elevating pursuit that Lambert 
glimpsed for an instant in the passing stream 
of people a figure that made him start with the 
prickling alertness of recognition. 

He had caught but a flash of the hurrying 
figure but, with that eye for singling a certain 
object from a moving mass that experience with 
cattle sharpens, he recognized the carriage of 
340 


USE FOR AN OLD PAPER 


the head, the set of the shoulders. He hurried 
after, overtaking the man as he was entering a 
hotel. 

Mr. Kerr, IVe got a warrant for you,’^ he 
said, detaining the fugitive with a hand laid on 
his shoulder. 

Kerr was taken so unexpectedly that he had 
no chance to sling a gun, even if he carried one. 
He was completely changed in appearance, even 
to the sacrifice of his prized beard, so long his 
aristocratic distinction in the Bad Lands. He 
was dressed in the city fashion, with a little 
straw hat in place of the eighteen-inch sombrero 
that he had worn for years. Confident of this 
disguise, he atfected astonished indignation. 

I guess youVe made a mistake in your 
man, ’ ^ said he. 

Lambert told him with polite firmness that 
there was no mistake. 

‘‘ I^d know your voice in the dark — IVe got 
reason to remember it, ’ ’ he said. 

He got the warrant out with one hand, keep- 
ing the other comfortably near his gun, the lit- 
tle hand bag with its riches between his feet. 
Kerr was so vehemently indignant that atten- 
341 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


tion was drawn to them, which probably was the 
fugitive cattleman ^s design, seeing in numbers 
a chance to make a dash. 

Lambert had not forgotten the experience of 
his years at the Kansas City Stockyards, where 
he had seen confidence men and card sharpers 
play the same scheme on policemen, clamoring 
their innocence until a crowd had been attracted 
in which the officer would not dare risk a shot. 
He kept Kerr within reaching distance, flashed 
the warrant before his eyes, passed it up and 
down in front of his nose, and put it away again. 

‘‘ There’s no mistake, not by a thousand 
miles. You ’ll come along back to Glendora with 
me.” 

A policeman appeared by this time, and Kerr 
appealed to him, protesting mistaken identity. 
The officer was a heavy-headed man of the 
slaughter-house school, and Lambert thought 
for a while that Kerr’s argument was going to 
prevail with him. To forestall the policeman’s 
decision, which he could see forming behind his 
clouded countenance, Lambert said : 

‘‘ There’s a reward of nine hundred dollars 
standing for this man. If you’ve got any doubt 
342 


USE FOR AN OLD PAPER 


of who he is, or my right to arrest him, take us 
both to headquarters. ’ ^ 

That seemed to be a worthy suggestion to the 
officer. He acted on it without more drain on 
his intellectual reserve. There, after a little 
course of sprouts by the chief of detectives, 
Kerr admitted his identity, but refused to leave 
the state without requisition They locked him 
up, and Lambert telegraphed the sheriff for the 
necessary papers. 

Going home was off for perhaps several days. 
Lambert gave his little satchel to the police to 
lock in the safe. The sheriff’s pply came back 
like a pitched ball. Hold Kerr, he requested the 
police ; requisition would be made for him. He 
instructed Lambert to wait till the papers came, 
and bring the fugitive home. 

Kerr got in telegraphic touch with a lawyer 
in the home county. Morning showed a consid- 
erable change of temperature in the frontier 
financier. He announced that, acting on legal 
advice, he would waive extradition. Lambert 
telegraphed the sheriff the news, requesting 
that he meet him at Glendora and relieve him 
of his charge. 


343 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Lambert prepared for the home-going by 
buying another revolver, and a pair of hand- 
cuffs for attaching his prisoner comfortably and 
securely to the arm of the seat. The little black 
bag gave him no worry. It wasn ’t half the trou- 
ble to watch money, when you didn’t look as if 
you had any, as a man who had swindled people 
out of it and wanted to hide his face. 

The police joked Lambert about the size of 
his bag when they gave it back to him as he 
was starting with his prisoner for the train. 

What have you got in that alligator. Sher- 
iff, that you ’re so careful not to set it down and 
forget it? ” the chief asked him. 

Sixteen thousand dollars,” said Lambert, 
modestly, opening it and flashing its contents 
before their eyes. 


344 


CHAPTER XXV 


WHEN SHE WAKES UP ’’ 

I T WAS mid-afternoon of a bright autumn 
day when Lambert approached Glendora 
with Kerr chained to the seat beside him. As 
the train rapidly cut down the last few miles, 
Lambert noted a change in his prisoner’s de- 
meanor. Up to that time his carriage had been 
melancholy and morose, as that of a man who 
saw no gleam of hope ahead of him. He had 
spoken but seldom during the journey, asking 
no favors except that of being allowed to send 
a telegram to Grace from Omaha. 

Lambert had granted that request readily, 
seeing nothing amiss in Kerr’s desire to have 
his daughter meet him and lighten as much as 
she could his load of disgrace. Kerr said he 
wanted her to go with him to the county seat 
and arrange bond. 

‘‘I’ll never look through the bars of a jail 
in my home county, ’ ’ he said. That was his one 
345 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


burst of rebellion, his one boast, his one ap- 
proach to a discussion of his serious situation, 
all the way. 

Now as they drew almost within sight of 
Glendora, Kerr became fidgety and nervous. 
His face was strained and anxious, as if he 
dreaded stepping off the train into sight of the 
people who had known him so long as a man of 
consequence in that community. 

Lambert began to have his own worries about 
this time. He regretted the kindness he had 
shown Kerr in permitting him to send that tele- 
gram to Grace. She might try to deliver him 
on bail of another kind. Kerr’s nervous anxiety 
would seem to indicate that he expected some- 
thing to happen at Glendora. It hadn’t oc- 
curred to Lambert before that this might be 
possible. It seemed a foolish oversight. 

His apprehension, as well as Kerr’s evident 
expectation, seemed groundless as he stepped 
otf the train almost directly in front of the wait- 
ing-room door, giving Kerr a hand down the 
steps. There was nobody in sight but the post- 
master with the mail sack, the station agent, 
and the few citizens who always stood around 
346 


“ WHEN SHE WAKES UP 


the station for the thrill of seeing the flier stop 
to take water. 

Few, if any, of these recognized Kerr as Lam- 
bert hurried him across the platform and into 
the station, his hands manacled at his back. 
Kerr held hack for one quick look up and down 
the station platform, then stumbled hastily 
ahead under the force of Lambert’s hand. The 
door of the telegraph office stood open ; Lambert 
pushed his prisoner within and closed it. 

The station agent came in as the train pulled 
away, and Lambert made inquiry of him con- 
cerning the sheriff. The agent had not seen him 
there that day. He turned away with sullen 
countenance, looking with disfavor on this in- 
trusion upon his sacred precincts. He stood in 
front of his chattering instruments in the bow 
window, looking up and down the platform with 
anxious face out of which his natural human 
color had gone, leaving even his lips white. 

You don’t have to keep him in here, I guess, 
do you? ” he said, still sweeping the platform 
up and down with his uneasy eyes. 

‘‘No. I just stepped in to ask you to put this 
satchel in your safe and keep it for me a while. ” 
347 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Lambert ’s calm and confident manner seemed 
to assure the agent, and mollify him, and repair 
his injured dignity. He beckoned with a jerk of 
his head, not for one moment quitting his lean- 
ing, watchful pose, or taking his eyes from their 
watch on the platform. Lambert crossed the 
little room in two strides and looked out. Not 
seeing anything more alarming than a knot of 
townsmen around the postmaster, who stood 
with the lean mail sack across his shoulder, talk- 
ing excitedly, he inquired what was up. 

They’re layin’ for you out there,” the 
agent whispered. 

‘ ‘ I kind of expected they would be, ’ ’ Lambert 
told him. 

‘‘ They’re liable to cut loose any minute,” 
said the agent, and I tell you, Duke, I’ve got 
a wife and children dependin’ on me! ” 

I’ll take him outside. I didn’t intend to 
stay here only a minute. Here, lock this up. It 
belongs to Vesta Philbrook. If I have to go 
with the sheriff, or anything, send her word it ’s 
here. ’ ’ 

As Lambert appeared in the door with his 
prisoner the little bunch of excited gossips scat- 
348 


“ WHEN SHE WAKES UP 


tered hurriedly. He stood near the door a 
little while, considering the situation. The sta- 
tion agent was not to blame for his desire to 
preserve his valuable services for the railroad 
and his family; Lambert had no wish to shelter 
himself and retain his hold on the prisoner at 
the trembling fellow ^s peril. 

It was unaccountable that the sheriff was not 
there to relieve him of this responsibility; he 
must have received the telegram two days ago. 
Pending his arrival, or, if not his arrival, the 
coming of the local train that would carry him- 
self and prisoner to the county seat, Lambert 
cast about him for some means of securing his 
man in such manner that he could watch him 
and defend against any attempted rescue with- 
out being hampered. 

A telegraph pole stood beside the platform 
some sixty or seventy feet from the depot,, the 
wires slanting down from it into the building’s 
gable end. To this Lambert marched his pris- 
oner, the eyes of the town on him. He freed 
one of Kerr’s hands, passed his arms round the 
pole so he stood embracing it, and locked him 
there. 


349 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


It was a pole of only medium thickness, al- 
lowing Kerr ample room to encircle it with his 
chained arms, even to sit on the edge of the plat- 
form when he should weary of his standing em- 
brace. Lambert stood back a pace and looked at 
him, thus ignominiously anchored in public 
view. 

‘ ‘ Let ^em come and take you, ’ ’ he said. 

He laid out a little beat up and down the plat- 
form at Kerr’s back, rolled a cigarette, settled 
down to wait for the sheriff, the train, the rush 
of Kerr’s friends, or whatever the day might 
have in store. 

Slowly, thoughtfully, he paced that beat of a 
rod behind his surly prisoner’s back, watching 
the town, watching the road leading into it. 
People stood in the doors, but none approached 
him to make inquiry, no voice was lifted in pitch 
that reached him where he stood. If anybody 
else in town besides the agent knew of the con- 
templated rescue, he kept it selfishly to himself. 

Lambert did not see any of Kerr’s men about. 
Five horses were hitched in front of the saloon ; 
now and then he could see the top of a hat above 
the latticed half-door, but nobody entered, no- 
350 


WHEN SHE WAKES UP ’’ 


body left. The station agent still stood in his 
window, working the telegraph key as if report- 
ing the clearing of the flier, watching anxiously 
up and down the platform. 

Lambert hoped that Sim Hargus and young 
Tom, and the old stub-footed scoundrel who was 
the meanest of them all who had lashed him into 
the fire that night, would swing the doors of the 
saloon and come out with a declaration of their 
intentions. He knew that some of them, if not 
all, were there. He had tied Kerr out before 
their eyes like wolf bait. Let them come and get 
him if they were men. 

This seemed the opportunity which he had 
been waiting for time to bring him. If they 
flashed a gun on him now he could clean them 
down to the ground with all legal justification, 
no questions asked. 

Two appeared far down the road, riding for 
Glendora in a swinging gallop. The sheriff, 
Lambert thought ; missed the train, and had rid- 
den the forty and more fniles across. No; one 
was Grace Kerr. Even at a quarter of a mile he 
never could mistake her again. The other was 
Sim Hargus. They had miscalculated in their 
351 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


intention of meeting the train, and were coming 
in a panic of anxiety. 

They dismounted at the hotel, and started 
across. Lambert stood near his prisoner, wait- 
ing. Kerr had been sitting on the edge of the 
platform. Now he got up, moving around the 
pole to show them that he was not to be counted 
on to take a hand in whatever they expected to 
start. 

Lambert moved a little nearer his prisoner, 
where he stood waiting. He had not shaved 
during the two days between Chicago and Glen- 
dora ; the dust of the road was on his face. His 
hat was tipped forward to shelter his eyes 
against the afternoon glare, the leather thong 
at the back rumpling his close-cut hair. He 
stood lean and long-limbed, easy and indifferent 
in his pose, as it would seem to look at him as 
one might glance in passing, the smoke of his 
cigarette rising straight from its fresh-let tip 
in the calm air of the somnolent day. 

As Hargus and Grace advanced, coming in 
the haste and heat of indignation that Kerr’s 
humiliating situation inflamed, two men left 
the saloon. They stopped at the hitching-rack 
352 


“ WHEN SHE WAKES UP ’’ 


as if debating whether to take their horses, and 
so stood, watching the progress of the two who 
were cutting the long diagonal across the road. 
When Grace, who came a little ahead of her 
companion in her eagerness, was within thirty 
feet of him, Lambert lifted his hand in forbid- 
ding signal. 

Stop there,’’ he said. 

She halted, her face flaming with fury. Har- 
gus stopped beside her, his arm crooked to 
bring his hand up to his belt, sawing back and 
forth as if in indecision between drawing his 
gun and waiting for the wordy preliminaries to 
pass. Kerr stood embracing the pole in a pose 
of ridiculous supplication, the bright chain of 
the new handcuffs glistening in the sun. 

I want to talk to my father,” said Grace, 
lashing Lambert with a look of scornful hate. 

Say it from there,” Lambert returned, in- 
flexible, cool ; watching every movement of Sim 
Hargus ’ sawing arm. 

You’ve got no right to chain him up like a 
dog! ” she said. 

You ain’t got no authority, that anybody 
ever heard of, to arrest him in the first place, ’ ^ 
353 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Hargus added, his swinging, indecisive arm for 
a moment still. 

Lambert made no reply. He seemed to be 
looking over their heads, back along the road 
they had come, from the lift of his chin and the 
set of his close-gathered brows. He seemed 
carelessly indifferent to Hargus’ legal opinion 
and presence, a little fresh plume of smoke go- 
ing up from his cigarette as if he breathed into 
it gently. 

Grace started forward with impatient excla- 
mation, tossing her head in disdainful defiance 
of this fence-rider’s authority. 

‘‘ Go back! ” Kerr commanded, his voice 
hoarse with the fear of something that she, in 
her unreasoning anger, had not seen behind the 
calm front of the man she faced. 

She stopped, turning back again to where 
Hargus waited. Along the street men were 
drawing away from their doors, in cautious cu- 
riosity, silent suspense. Women put their heads 
out for a moment, plucked curtains aside for 
one swift survey, vanished behind the safety of 
walls. At the hitching-rack the two men — one 
of them Tom Hargus, the other unknown — 
354 


“ WHEN SHE WAKES UP ’’ 


stood beside their horses, as if in position ac- 
cording to a previous plan. 

We want that man,’’ said Hargus, his hand 
hovering over his gun. 

' Come and take him,” Lambert invited. 

Hargus spoke in a low voice to Grace; she 
turned and ran toward her horse. The two at 
the hitching-rack swung into their saddles as 
Hargus, watching Grace over his shoulder as 
she sped away, began to back off, his hand steal- 
ing to his gun as if moved by some slow, pre- 
cise machinery which was set to time it accord- 
ing to the fleeing girl ’s speed. 

Lambert stood without shifting a foot, his 
nostrils dilating in the slow, deep breath that 
he drew. Yard by yard Hargus drew away, his 
intention not quite clear, as if he watched his 
chance to break away like a prisoner. Grace 
was in front of the hotel door when he snapped 
his revolver from its sheath. 

Lambert had been waiting this. He fired be- 
fore Hargus touched the trigger, his elbow to 
his side as he had seen Jim Wilder shoot on 
the day when tragedy first came into his life. 
Hargus spun on his heel as if he had been roped, 
355 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


spread his arms, his gun falling from his hand ; 
pitched to his face, lay still. The two on horses 
galloped out and opened fire. 

Lambert shifted to keep them guessing, but 
kept away from the pole where Kerr was 
chained, behind which he might have found 
shelter. They had separated to flank him, Tom 
Hargus over near the corner of the depot, the 
other ranging down toward the hotel, not more 
than fifty yards between Lambert and either of 
them. 

Intent on' drawing Tom Hargus from the 
shelter of the depot, Lambert ran along the 
platform, stopping well beyond Kerr. Until 
that moment he had not returned their fire. 
Now he opened on Tom Hargus, bringing his 
horse down at the third shot, swung about and 
emptied his first gun ineffectually at the other 
man. 

This fellow charged down on him as Lambert 
drew his other gun, Tom Hargus, free of his 
fallen horse, shooting from the shelter of the 
rain barrel at the corner of the depot. Lambert 
felt something strike his left arm, with no more 
apparent force, no more pain, than the flip of a 
356 


“ WHEN SHE WAKES UP 


branch when one rides through the woods. But 
it swung useless at his side. 

Through the smoke of his own gun, and the 
dust raised by the man on horseback, Lambert 
had a flash of Grace Kerr riding across the mid- 
dle background between him and the saloon. 
He had no thought of her intention. It was not 
a moment for speculation with the bullets hit- 
ting his hat. 

The man on horseback had come within ten 
yards of him. Lambert could see his teeth as 
he drew back his lips when he fired. Lambert 
centered his attention on this stranger, dark, 
meager-faced, marked by the unmistakable 
Mexican taint. His hat flew off at Lambert’s 
first shot as if it had been jerked by a string; 
at his second, the fellow threw himself back in 
the saddle with a jerk. He fell limply over the 
high cantle and lay thus a moment, his fran- 
tic horse running wildly away. Lambert saw 
him tumble into the road as a man came spur- 
ring past the hotel, slinging his gun as he rode. 

Nearer approach identified the belated sher- 
iff. He shouted a warning to Lambert as he 
jerked his gun down and fired. Tom Hargus 
357 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 

rose from behind the rain barrel, staggered into 
the road, going like a drunken man, his hat in 
one hand, the other pressed to his side, his head 
hanging, his long black hair falling over his 
bloody face. 

In a second Lambert saw this, and the shout- 
ing, shooting officer bearing down toward him. 
He had the peculiar impression that the sheriff 
was submerged in water, enlarging grotesquely 
as he approached. The slap of another bullet 
on his back, and he turned to see Grace Kerr 
firing at him with only the width of the plat- 
form between them. 

It was all smoke, dust, confusion around him, 
a sickness in his body, a dimness in his mind, 
but he was conscious of her horse rearing, lift- 
ing its feet high — one of them a white-stock- 
inged foot, as he marked with painful precision 
— and falling backward in a clatter of shod 
hoofs on the railroad. 

When it cleared a little, Lambert found the 
sheriff was on the ground beside him, support- 
ing him with his arm, looking into his face with 
concern almost comical, speaking in anxious in- 
quiry. 


358 


WHEN SHE WAKES UP 


‘ ‘ Lay down over there on the platform, Duke, 
you ’re shot all to pieces, ’ ’ he said. 

Lambert sat on the edge of the platform, and 
the world receded. When he felt himself sweep 
back to consciousness there were people about 
him, and he was stretched on his back, a feel- 
ing in his nostrils as if he breathed fire. Some- 
body was lying across from him a little way; 
he struggled with painful effort to lift himself 
and see. 

It was Grace Kerr. Her face was white in 
the midst of her dark hair, and she was dead. 

It was not right for her to be lying there, 
with dead face to the sky, he thought. They 
should do something, they should carry her 
away from the stare of curious, shocked eyes, 
they should — He felt in the pocket of his vest 
and found the little handkerchief, and crept 
painfully across to her, heedless of the sheriff’s 
protest, defiant of his restraining, kindly hand. 

With his numb left arm trailing by his side, 
a burning pain in his breast, as if a hot rod had 
been driven through him, the track of her 
treacherous bullet, he knew, he fumbled to un- 
fold the bit of soft white linen, refusing the 
359 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


help* of many sympathetic hands that were out- 
stretched. 

When he had it right, he spread it over her 
face, white again as an evening primrose, as he 
once had seen it through the dusk of another 
night. But out of this night that she had en- 
tered she would ride no more. There was a 
thought in his heart as tender as his deed as he 
thus masked her face from the white stare of 
day: 

She can wipe her eyes on it when she wakes 
up and repents^* 


360 


CHAPTER XXVI 


OYSTEKS AND AMBITIONS 

YOU’D come on and go to Wyoming 

A with me, Duke, I think it’d be better for 
you than California. That low country ain’t 
good for a feller with a tender place in his 
lights.” 

Oh, I think I’m all right and as good as 
ever now, Taterleg.” 

Yes, it looks all right to you, but if you 
git dampness on that lung you’ll take the con- 
sumption and die. I knew a feller once that got 
shot that way through the lights in a fight down 
on the Cimarron. Him and another feller fell 
out over ” 

‘‘ Have you heard from Nettie lately? ” Lam- 
bert broke in, not caring to hear the story of the 
man who was shot on the Cimarron, or his sub- 
sequent miscalculations on the state of his 
lights. 

Taterleg rolled his eyes to look at him, not 
361 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


turning his head, reproach in the glance, mild 
reproof. But he let it pass in his good-natured 
way, brightening to the subject nearest his 
heart. 

^ ^ Four or five days ago. ’ ^ 

‘‘All right, is she? ’’ 

“ Up and a-comin’, fine as a fiddle.’’ 

“ You’ll be boldin’ hands with her before the 
preacher in a little while now.” 

“ Inside of a week, Duke. My troubles is 
nearly all over.” 

“ I don’t know about that, but I hope it’ll 
turn out that way. ’ ’ ^ 

They were on their way home from deliver- 
ing the calves and the clean-up of the herd to 
Pat Sullivan, some weeks after Lambert ’s fight 
at Glendora. Lambert still showed the effects 
of his long confinement and drain of his wounds 
in the paleness of his face. But he sat his 
saddle as straight as ever, not much thinner, as 
far as the eye could weigh him, nothing miss- 
ing from him but the brown of his skin and the 
blood they had drawn from him that day. 

There was frost on the grass that morning, 
a foretaste of winter in the sharp wind. The 
362 


OYSTERS AND AMBITIONS 


sky was gray with the threat of snow, the som- 
ber season of hardship on the range was at 
hand. Lambert thought, as he read these signs, 
that it would be a hard winter on livestock in 
that unsheltered country, and was comfortable 
in mind over the profitable outcome of his deal- 
ings for his employer. 

As for himself, his great plans were at an 
end on the Bad Lands range. The fight at Glen- 
dora had changed all that. The doctor had 
warned him that he must not attempt another 
winter in the saddle with that tender spot in 
his lung, his blood thinned down that way, his 
flesh soft from being housebound for nearly six 
weeks. He advised a milder climate for several 
months of recuperation, and was very grave in 
his advice. 

So the sheep scheme was put aside. The cat- 
tle being sold, there was nothing about the ranch 
that old Ananias could not do, and Lambert 
had planned to turn his face again toward the 
West. He could not lie around there in the 
bunkhouse and grow strong at Vesta’s expense, 
although that was what she expected him to do. 

He had said nothing to her of his determi- 
363 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


nation to go, for he had wavered in it from 
day to day, finding it hard to tear himself away 
from that bleak land that he had come to love, 
as he never had loved the country which claimed 
him by birth. He had been called on in this 
place to fight for a man^s station in it; he had 
trampled a refuge of safety for the defenseless 
among its thorns. 

Vesta had said nothing further of her own 
plans, but they took it for granted that she 
would be leaving, now that the last of the cattle 
were sold. Ananias had told them that she 
was putting things away in the house, getting 
ready to close most of it up. 

‘‘ I don’t blame you for leavin’,” said Tater- 
leg, returning to the original thread of discus- 
sion, “ it’ll be as lonesome a^s sin up there at 
the ranch with Vesta gone away. When she’s 
there she fills that place up like the music of a 
band. ’ ’ 

She sure does, Taterleg.” 

‘ ‘ Old Ananias ’ll have a soft time of it, eatin ’ 
chicken and rabbit all winter, nothing to do but 
milk them couple of cows, no boss to keep her 
eye on him in a thousand miles.” 

364 


OYSTERS AND AMBITIONS 


He’s one that’ll never want to leave.” 

‘‘ Well, it’s a good place for a man,” Tater- 
leg sighed, ‘‘ if he ain’t got nothin’ else to look 
ahead to. I kind o ’ hate to leave myself, but at 
W age, you know, Duke, a man’s got to begin 
to think of marryin’ and settlin’ down and fixin’ 
him up a home, as I’ve said before.” 

“ Many a time before, old feller, so many 
times I ’ve got it down by heart. ’ ’ 

Taterleg looked at him again with that queer 
turning of the eyes, which he could accomplish 
with the facility of a fish, and rode on in 
silence a little way after chiding him in that 
manner. 

Well, it won’t do you no harm,” he said. 

“ No,” sighed the Duke, not a bit of 
harm. ’ ’ 

Taterleg chuckled as he rode along, hummed 
a tune, laughed again in his dry, clicking way, 
deep down in his throat. 

“ I met Alta the other day when I was down 
in Glendora,” he said. 

. Did you make up? ” 

‘‘ Make up! That girl looks to me like a tin 
cup by the side of a silver shavin’ mug noWy 
365 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


Duke. Compare tkat girl to Nettie, and she 
wouldn^t take the leather medal. She says: 
‘ Good morning, Mr. Wilson,’ she says, and I 
turned my head quick, like I was lookin ’ around 
for him, and never kep’ a-lettin’ on like I knew 
she meant me.” 

That was kind of rough treatment for a 
lady, Taterleg.” 

“ It would be for a lady, but for that girl it 
ain’t. It’s what’s cornin’ to her, and what I’ll 
hand her ag’in, if she ever’s got the gall to 
speak to me.” 

The Duke had no further comment on Tater- 
leg’s rules of conduct. They went along in 
silence a little way, but that was a state that 
Taterleg could not long endure. 

“ Well, I’ll soon he in the oyster parlor up to 
the bellyband,” he said, full of the cheer of his 
prospect. ‘‘ Nettie’s got the place picked out 
and nailed down — I sent her the money to pay 
the rent. I’ll be handin’ out stews with a slice 
of pickle on the side of the dish before another 
week goes by, Duke.” 

‘‘ What are you goin’ to make oysters out of 
in Wyoming? ” the Duke inquired wonderingly. 

366 


OYSTERS AND AMBITIONS 


Make ’em out of! Oysters, of course. 
What do you reckon! ” 

‘‘ There never was an oyster within a thou- 
sand miles of Wyoming, Taterleg. They 
wouldn’t keep to ship that far, much less till 
you’d used ’em up.” 

‘‘ Cove oysters, Duke, cove oysters,” cor- 
rected Taterleg gently. “ You couldn’t hire a 
cowman to eat any other kind, you couldn ’t put 
one of them slick fresh fellers down him with a 
pair of tongs.” 

Well, I guess you know, old feller.” 

Taterleg fell into a reverie, from which he 
started presently with a vehement exclamation 
of profanity. 

If she’s got hangs. I’ll make h^r cut ’em 
off! ” he said. 

Who cut ’em off! ” Lambert asked, view- 
ing this outburst of feeling in surprise. 

Nettie! I don’t want no bangs around me 
to remind me of that snipe-legged Alta Wood. 
Bangs may be all right lor fellers with music 
boxes in their watches, but they don’t go with 
me no more.” 

I didn’t see Jedlick around the ranch up 
867 


THE DUKE OP CIIBINEY BUTTE 


there; what do you suppose become of him! 

‘‘ Well, from what the boys told me, if he’s 
still a-goin’ like he was when they seen him last, 
he must be up around Medicine Hat by now. ’ ’ 

^ ‘ It was a sin the way you threw a scare into 
that man, Taterleg.” 

I’m sorry I didn’t lay him out on a board, 
dern him ! ” 

Yes, but you might as well let him have 
Alta.” 

He can come back and take her any time 
he wants her, Duke. ’ ’ 

The Duke seemed to reflect this simple ex- 
position of Jedlick’s present case. 

Yes, I guess that’s so,” he said. 

For a mile or more there was no sound but 
the even swing of their horses’ hoofs as they 
beat in the long, easy gallop which they could 
hold for a day without a break. Then Lambert : 

Plannin’ to leave tonight, are you Tater- 
leg! ” 

‘‘All set for leavin’, Duke.” 

On again, the frost-powdered grass brittle 
under the horses’ feet. 

“ I think I’ll pull out tonight, too.” 

368 


OYSTERS AND AMBITIONS 


Why, I thought you was goin’ to stay till 
Vesta left, Duke? ’’ 

‘‘ Changed my mind.” 

“ Don^t you reckon Vesta she ^11 be a little 
put out if you leave the ranch after she’d fig- 
gered on you to stay and pick up and gain and 
be stout and hearty to go in the sheep business 
next spring? ” 

‘‘ I hope not.” 

‘‘ Yeh, but I bet she will. Do you reckon 
she’ll ever come back to the ranch any more 
when she goes away? ” 

What? ” said Lambert, starting as if he 
had been asleep. 

Vesta; do you reckon she’ll ever come back 
any more? ” 

‘‘Well,” slowly, thoughtfully, “there’s no 
tollin’, Taterleg.” 

“ She’s got a stockin’ full of money now, 
and nobody dependin’ on her. She’s just as 
likely as not to marry some lawyer or some 
other shark that’s after her dough.” 

“ Yes, she may.” 

“No, I don’t reckon much she’ll ever come 
back. She ain’t got nothing to look back to here 
369 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


but hard times and shootin’ scrapes — nobody 
to ^sociate with and wear low-neckid dresses 
like women with money want to. ’ ’ 

‘‘Not much chance for it here — you’re 
right.” 

“You’d ’a’ had it nice and quiet there with 
them sheep if you’d ’a’ been able to go pard- 
ners with Vesta like you planned, old Nick 
•Hargus in the pen and the rest of them fellers 
cleaned out.” 

“ Yes, I guess there’ll be peace around the 
ranch for some time to come.” 

“ Well, you made the peace around there, 
Duke; if it hadn’t ’a’ been for you they’d ’a’ 
broke Vesta up and run her out by now.” 

“You had as much to do with bringin’ them 
to time as I did, Taterleg. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Me ? Look me over, Duke ; feel of my hide. 
Do you see any knife scars in me, or feel any 
bullet holes anywhere? I never done nothing 
but ride along that fence, hopin’ for a somebody 
to start something. They never done it. ’ ’ 

“ They knew you too well, old feller.” 

“ Knowed me/ ” said Taterleg. “ Huh! ” 
On again in quiet, Glendora in sight when 
370 


OYSTERS AND AMBITIONS 


they topped a hill. Taterleg seemed to be think- 
ing deeply; his face was sentimentally serious. 

Purty girl/’ he said in a pleasant vein of 
musing. 

Which one? ” 

Vesta. I like ’em with a little more of a 
figger, a little thicker in some places and wider 
in others, hut she’s trim and she’s tasty, and 
her heart’s pure gold.” 

‘‘ You’re right it is, Taterleg,” Lambert 
agreed, keeping his eyes straight ahead as they 
rode on. 

‘‘ You’re aimin’ to come back in the spring 
and go pardners with her on the sheep deal, 
ain’t you, Duke? ” 

“ I don’t expect I’ll ever come back, Tater^ 
leg.” 

‘‘ Well,” said Taterleg abstractedly, ‘‘ I 
don’t know.” 

They rode past the station, the bullet-scarred 
rain barrel behind which Tom Hargus took 
shelter in the great battle still standing in its 
place, and past the saloon, the hitching-rack 
empty before it, for this was the round-up sea- 
son — nobody was in town. 

371 


THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE 


There’s that slab-sided, spider-legged Alta 
Wood standin’ out on the porch,” said Tater- 
leg disgustedly, falling behind Lambert, reining 
around on the other side to put him between the 
lady and himself. 

You’d better stop and bid her good-bye,” 
Lambert suggested. 

Taterleg pulled his hat over his eyes to shut 
out the sight of her, turned his head, ignoring 
her greeting. When they were safely past he 
cast a cautious look behind. 

‘‘ I guess that settled her hash! ” he said. 

Yes, and I’d like to wad a handful of chewin’ 
gum in them old bangs before I leave this man ’s 
town! ” 

You’ve broken her chance for a happy mar- 
ried life with Jedlick, Taterleg. Your heart’s 
as hard as a bone.” 

‘‘ The worst luck I can wish her is that Jed- 
lick ’ll come back,” he said, turning to look at 
her as he spoke. Alta waved her hand. 

‘‘ She’s a forgivin’ little soul, anyway,” Lam- 
bert said. 

Forgivin’! ‘ Don’t hurt him, Mr. Jedlick,’ 
she says, ‘ don’t hurt him! ’ Huh! I had to 
372 


OYSTERS AND AMBITIONS 


build a fire under that old gun of mine to melt 
the chawin’ wax off of her. I wouldn ’t give that 
girl a job washin’ dishes in the oyster parlor if 
she was to travel from here to Wyoming on her 
knees.” 

So they arrived at the ranch from their last 
expedition together. Lambert gave Taterleg 
his horse to take to the bam, while he stopped 
in to deliver Pat Sullivan’s check to Vesta and 
kraighten up the final business, and tell her 
good-bye. 


373 


CHAPTEE XXVII 

EMOLUMENTS AND REWARDS 

L ambert took off his hat at the door and 
4 smoothed his hair with his palm, tightened 
up his necktie, looked himself over from chest 
to toes. He drew a deep breath then, like a 
man fortifying himself for a trial that called 
for the best that was in him to come forward. 
He knocked on the door. 

He was wearing a brown duck coat with a 
sheepskin collar, the wool of which had been 
dyed a mottled saffron, and corduroy breeches 
as roomy of leg as Taterleg’s state pair. These 
were laced within the tall hoots which he had 
bought in Chicago, and in which he took a singu- 
lar pride on account of their novelty on the 
range. 

It was not a very handsome outfit, but there 
was a rugged picturesqueness in it that the 
pistol belt and chafed scabbard enhanced, and 
lie carried it like a man who was not ashamed 
374 


EMOLUMENTS AND REWARDS 


of it, and graced it by the worth that it con- 
tained. 

The Duke^s hair had grown long; shears had 
not touched his head since his fight with Kerr ^s 
men. Jim Wilder’s old scar was blue on his 
thin cheek that day, for the wind had been coJd 
to face. He was so solemn and severe as he 
stood waiting at the door that it would seem 
to be a triumph to make him smile. 

Vesta came to the door herself, with such 
promptness that seemed to tell she must have 
been near it from the moment his foot fell on 
the porch. 

‘‘ IVe come to settle up with you on our last 
deal, Vesta,” he said. 

She took him to the room in which they al- 
ways transacted business, which was a library 
in fact as well as name. It had been Philbrook’s 
office in his day. Lambert once had expressed 
his admiration for the room, a long and narrow 
chamber with antlers on the walls above the 
bookcases, a broad fireplace flanked by leaded 
casement windows. It was furnished with deep 
leather chairs and a great, dark oak table, which 
looked as if it had stood in some English manor 
375 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


in the days of other kings. The windows looked 
out upon the river. 

A pleasant place on a winter night, Lambert 
thought, with a log fire on the dogs, somebody 
sitting near enough that one could reach out 
and find her hand without turning his eyes from 
the book, the last warm touch to crown the 
comfort of his happy hour. 

‘‘You mean our latest deal, not our last, I 
hope, Duke, ’ ’ she said, sitting at the table, with 
him at the head of it like a baron returned to 
his fireside after a foray in the field. 

“I’m afraid it will be our last; there’s noth- 
ing left to sell but the fence.” 

She glanced at him with relief in her eyes, a 
quick smile coming happily to her lips. He 
was busy with the account of calves and grown 
stock which he had drawn from his wallet, the 
check lying by his hand. His face taken as an 
index to it, there was not much lightness in his 
heart. Soon he had acquitted himself of his 
stewardship and given the check into her hand. 
Then he rose to leave her. For a moment he 
stood silent, as if turning his thoughts. 

“I’m going away,” he said, looking out of 
376 


EMOLUMENTS AND REWARDS 


the window down upon the tops of the naked 
cottonwoods along the river. 

Just around the corner of the table she was 
standing, half facing him, looking at him with 
what seemed almost compassionate tenderness, 
so sympathetic were her eyes. She touched his 
hand where it lay with fingers on his hat-brim. 

‘‘ Is it so hard for you to forget her, Duke? ” 

He looked at her frankly, no deceit in his eyes, 
but a mild surprise to hear her chide him so. 

If I could forget of her what no forgiving 
soul should remember, I’d feel more like a 
man,” he said. 

I thought — I thought — ” she stammered, 
bending her head, her voice soft and low, you 
were grieving for her, Duke. Forgive me.” 

‘ ‘ Taterleg is leaving tonight, ’ ’ he said, over- 
looking her soft appeal. I thought I’d go at 
the same time.” 

“ It will be so lonesome here on the ranch 
without you, Duke — lonesome as it never was 
lonesome before.” 

Even if there was anything I could do 
around the ranch any longer, with the cattle all 
gone and nobody left to cut the fence, I wouldn’t 
377 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 

be any use, dodging in for every blizzard that 
came along, as the doctor says I must. ^ ’ 

IVe come to depend on you as I never de- 
pended on anybody in my life. ’ ’ 

“And I couldn’t do that, you know, any more 
than I’d be content to lie around doing noth- 
ing.” 

“ You’ve been square with me on everything, 
from the biggest to the least. I never knew be- 
fore what it was to lie down in security and get 
up in peace. You’ve fought and suffered for 
me here in a measure far in excess of anything 
that common loyalty demanded of you, and I ’ve 
given you nothing in return. It will be like los- 
ing my right hand, Duke, to see you go. ’ ’ 

“ Taterleg’s going to Wyoming to marry a 
girl he used to know back in Kansas. We can 
travel together part of the way.” 

“ If it hadn’t been for you they’d have robbed 
me of everything by now — killed me, maybe — 
for I couldn’t have fought them alone, and there 
was no other help.” 

“ I thought maybe in California an old half- 
invalid might pick up and get some blood put 
into him again.” 


378 


EMOLUMENTS AND REWARDS 


‘‘You came out of the desert, as if God sent 
you, when my load was heavier than I could 
bear. It will be like losing my right eye, Duke, 
to see you go.’’ 

“A man that’s a fool for only a little while, 
even, is bound to leave false impressions and 
misunderstandings of himself, no matter how 
wide his own eyes have been opened, or how 
long. So I’ve resigned my job on the ranch 
here with you, Vesta, and I’m going away.” 

“ There’s no misunderstanding, Duke — it’s 
all clear to me now. When I look in your eyes 
and hear you speak I know you better than you 
know yourself. It will be like losing the whole 
world to have you go ! ” 

“A man couldn’t sit around and eat out of a 
woman ’s hand in idleness and ever respect him- 
self any more. My work’s finished ” 

“All I’ve got is yours — you saved it to me, 
you brought it home.” 

“ The world expects a man that hasn’t got 
anything to go out and make it before he turns 
around and looks — before he lets his tongue 
betray his heart and maybe be misunderstood 
by those he holds most dear.” 

379 


THE DUKE OP CHIMNEY BUTTE 


It^s none of the world’s business — there 
isn’t any world but ours! ” 

‘‘ I thought with you gone away, Vesta, and 
the house dark nights, and me not hearing you 
around any more, it would be so lonesome and 
bleak here for an old half -invalid ” 

I wasn’t going, I couldn’t have been driven 
away! I’d have stayed as long as you 
stayed, till you found — till you knew! Oh, it 
will tear — tear — my heart — my heart out of 
— my breast — to see you go ! ” 

Taterleg was singing his old-time steamboat 
song when Lambert went down to the bunk- 
house an hour before sunset. There was an 
aroma of coffee mingling with the strain : 

Oh, 1 het my money on a hoh-tcdled hoss, 

An^ a hoo-dah, an^ a hoo-dah; 

I het my money on a hoh-tailed hoss, 

An^ a hoo-doh het on the hay, 

Lambert smiled, standing beside the door 
until Taterleg had finished. Taterleg came out 
with his few possessions in a bran sack, giving 
Lambert a questioning look up and down. 

.^80 


EMOLUMENTS AND REWAKDS 


It took you a long time to settle up,’’ he 
said. 

Yes. There was considerable to dispose of 
and settle,” Lambert replied. 

“ Well, we’ll have to be bittin’ the breeze for 
the depot in a little while. Are you ready? ” 
No. Changed my mind; I’m going to 
stay. ’ ’ 

Coin’ in pardners with Vesta? ” 
Pardners.” 


381 




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